Download or read book Evaluation and Legal Theory written by Julie Dickson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2001-06-05 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If Raz and Dworkin disagree over how law should be characterised,how are we, their jurisprudential public, supposed to go about adjudicating between the rival theories which they offer us? To what considerations would those theorists themselves appeal in order to convince us that their accounts of law are accurate and successful? Moreover, what is it that makes an account of law successful? Evaluation and Legal Theory tackles methodological or meta-theoretical issues such as these, and does so via attempting to answer the question: to what extent, and in what sense, must a legal theorist make value judgements about his data in order to construct a successful theory of law? Dispelling the obfuscatory myth that legal positivism seeks a 'value-free' account of law, the author attempts to explain and defend Joseph Razs position that evaluation is essential to successful legal theory, whilst refuting John Finnis and Ronald Dworkins contentions that the legal theorist must morally evaluate and morally justify the law in order to properly explain its nature. The book does not claim to solve the many mysteries of meta-legal theory but does seek to contribute to and engender rigorous and focused debate on this topic.
Download or read book Risks and Legal Theory written by Jenny Steele and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2004-04-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In almost every field of law,from tort and contract to environmental law and criminal justice, issues about 'risk' are increasingly of interest to lawyers. At the same time, there has been little general enquiry into the nature of the contact between law and risks. This book argues that ideas about risk have not traditionally been absent from law, as is sometimes supposed. Lawyers and legal theorists have used and conceptualised risk in particular ways, and ideas of risk have had significant influence in key elements of legal theory including questions of justice and responsibility. The book explores the conceptual place of risk across a number of fields of law; and identifies some significant challenges for law and legal theory arising from broader debates about risk. It therefore sheds light on areas that are under-explored despite current interest among lawyers, and aims to provide an accessible guide to emerging controversies and challenges for law in this area while explaining their significance.
Download or read book Law after Modernity written by Sionaidh Douglas-Scott and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-07-18 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we characterise law and legal theory in the twenty-first century? Law After Modernity argues that we live in an age 'after Modernity' and that legal theory must take account of this fact. The book presents a dynamic analysis of law, which focusses on the richness and pluralism of law, on its historical embeddedness, its cultural contingencies, as well as acknowledging contemporary law's global and transnational dimensions. However, Law After Modernity also warns that the complexity, fragmentation, pluralism and globalisation of contemporary law may all too easily perpetuate injustice. In this respect, the book departs from many postmodern and pluralist accounts of law. Indeed, it asserts that the quest for justice becomes a crucial issue for law in the era of legal pluralism, and it investigates how it may be achieved. The approach is fresh, contextual and interdisciplinary, and, unusually for a legal theory work, is illustrated throughout with works of art and visual representations, which serve to re-enforce the messages of the book.
Download or read book Law s Meaning of Life written by Ngaire Naffine and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The perennial question posed by the philosophically-inclined lawyer is 'What is law?' or perhaps 'What is the nature of law?' This book poses an associated, but no less fundamental, question about law which has received much less attention in the legal literature. It is: 'Who is law for?' Whenever people go to law, they are judged for their suitability as legal persons. They are given or refused rights and duties on the basis of ideas about who matters. These ideas are basic to legal-decision making; they form the intellectual and moral underpinning of legal thought. They help to determine whether law is essentially for rational human beings or whether it also speaks to and for human infants, adults with impaired reasoning, the comotose, foetuses and even animals. Are these the right kind of beings to enter legal relationships and so become legal persons. Are they, for example, sufficiently rational, or sacred or simply human? Is law meant for them? This book reveals and evaluates the type of thinking that goes into these fundamental legal and metaphysical determinations about who should be capable of bearing legal rights and duties. It identifies and analyses four influential ways of thinking about law's person, each with its own metaphysical suppositions. One approach derives from rationalist philosophy, a second from religion, a third from evolutionary biology while the fourth is strictly legalistic and so endeavours to eschew metaphysics altogether. The book offers a clear, coherent and critical account of these complex moral and intellectual processes entailed in the making of legal persons.
Download or read book Law Rights and Discourse written by George Pavlakos and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2007-07-11 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A philosophical system is not what one would expect to find in the work of a contemporary legal thinker. Robert Alexy's work counts as a striking exception. Over the past 28 years Alexy has been developing, with remarkable clarity and consistency, a systematic philosophy covering most of the key areas of legal philosophy. Kantian in its inspiration, his work admirably combines the rigour of analytical philosophy with a repertoire of humanitarian ideals reflecting the tradition of the Geisteswissenschaften, rendering it one of the most far-reaching and influential legal philosophies in our time. This volume has been designed with two foci in mind: the first is to reflect the breadth of Alexy's philosophical system, as well as the varieties of jurisprudential and philosophical scholarship in the last three decades on which his work has had an impact. The second objective is to provide for a critical exchange between Alexy and a number of specialists in the field, with an eye to identifying new areas of inquiry and offering a new impetus to the discourse theory of law. To that extent, it was thought that a critical exchange such as the one undertaken here would most appropriately reflect the discursive and critical character of Robert Alexy's work. The volume is divided into four parts, each dealing with a key area of Alexy's contribution. A final section brings together concise answers by Robert Alexy. In composing these, Alexy has tried to focus on points and criticisms that address new aspects of discourse theory or otherwise point the way to future developments and applications. With its range of topics of coverage, the number of specialists it engages and the originality of the answers it provides, this collection will become a standard work of reference for anyone working in legal theory in general and the discourse theory of law in particular.
Download or read book Law and Aesthetics written by Adam Gearey and published by Hart Publishing. This book was released on 2001-06 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes as its starting point Shelley's assertion that poets are legislators and then tracks this aesthetic.
Download or read book Authority in Transnational Legal Theory written by Roger Cotterrell and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The increasing transnationalisation of regulation – and social life more generally – challenges the basic concepts of legal and political theory today. One of the key concepts being so challenged is authority. This discerning book offers a plenitude of resources and suggestions for meeting that challenge.
Download or read book Costs and Cautionary Tales written by Anthony I Ogus and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2006-04-05 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of this book is to provide an overview of how economic analysis can enrich an understanding of law and can provide standards for its critical evaluation. It eschews a dogmatic approach, acknowledging that non-economic goals play an important part in the law. It is directed primarily at lawyers and law students, particularly those who hitherto have been sceptical of the uses and value of law and economics. It is not a conventional textbook in the sense that it does not deal systematically with different areas of law. Rather each chapter is built on a particular theme or set of themes, with examples drawn from across legal categories. The approach is discursive, anecdotal and analytical, reflecting the ideas and convictions developed during the author's 30 years working in the field of law and economics. Winner of the Hart SLSA Book Prize 2007 for an outstanding piece of socio-legal scholarship.
Download or read book Introduction to Critical Legal Theory written by Ian Ward and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction to Critical Legal Theory provides an accessible introduction to the study of law and legal theory. It covers all the seminal movements in classical, modern and postmodern legal thought, engaging the reader with the ideas of jurists as diverse as Aristotle, Hobbes and Kant, Marx, Foucault and Dworkin. At the same time, it impresses the interdisciplinary nature of critical legal thought, introducing the reader to the philosophy, the economics and the politics of law. This new edition focuses even more intently upon the narrative aspect of critical legal thinking and the re-emergence of a distinctive legal humanism, as well as the various related challenges posed by our 'new' world order. Introduction to Critical Theory is a comprehensive text for both students and teachers of legal theory, jurisprudence and related subjects.
Download or read book A Dictionary of Legal Theory written by Brian Bix and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern legal theory contains a wide range of approaches and topics: from economic analysis of law to feminist legal theory to traditional analytical legal philosophy to a range of theories about justice. This healthy variety of jurisprudential work has created a problem: students and theorists working in one tradition may have difficulty understanding the concepts and terminology of a different tradition. This book works to make terminology and ways of thinking accessible. This dictionary covers topics from the 'autonomy of law' to the 'will theory of rights', from 'autopoiesis' to 'wealth maximization', and from 'John Austin' to 'Ludwig Wittgenstein'. The most important concepts and ideas are presented in a simple dictionary format. There are also many longer entries, where the initial definition gives an accessible explanation, but the entry goes on to give more detailed information about the history of an idea and the debates currently surrounding it.
Download or read book Frontiers of Legal Theory written by Richard A. Posner and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004-03 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most exciting development in legal thinking since World War II has been the growth of interdisciplinary legal studies. Judge Richard Posner has been a leader in this movement, and his new book explores its rapidly expanding frontier.
Download or read book Research Handbook on Critical Legal Theory written by Emilios Christodoulidis and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical theory, characteristically linked with the politics of theoretical engagement, covers the manifold of the connections between theory and praxis. This thought-provoking Research Handbook captures the broad range of those connections as far as legal thought is concerned and retains an emphasis both on the politics of theory, and on the notion of theoretical engagement. The first part examines the question of definition and tracks the origins and development of critical legal theory along its European and North American trajectories. The second part looks at the thematic connections between the development of legal theory and other currents of critical thought such as; Feminism, Marxism, Critical Race Theory, varieties of post-modernism, as well as the various ‘turns’ (ethical, aesthetic, political) of critical legal theory. The third and final part explores particular fields of law, addressing the question how the field has been shaped by critical legal theory, or what critical approaches reveal about the field, with the clear focus on opportunities for social transformation.
Download or read book The End of Law written by David McIlroy and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The End of Law applies Augustine’s questions to modern legal philosophy as well as offering a critical theory of natural law that draws on Augustine’s ideas. McIlroy argues that such a critical natural law theory is: realistic but not cynical about law’s relationship to justice and to violence, can diagnose ways in which law becomes deformed and pathological, and indicates that law is a necessary but insufficient instrument for the pursuit of justice. Positioning an examination of Augustine’s reflections on law in the context of his broader thought, McIlroy presents an alternative approach to natural law theory, drawing from critical theory, postmodern thought, and political theologies in conversation with Augustine.
Download or read book Observing Law Through Systems Theory written by Richard Nobles and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is complementary to our book A sociology of jurisprudence, although it is not necessary for readers to have read that book in order to engage with what we present here."--Preface.
Download or read book Feminist Legal Theory Second Edition written by Nancy Levit and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-01-15 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the completely updated second edition of this outstanding primer, Nancy Levit and Robert R.M. Verchick introduce the diverse strands of feminist legal theory and discuss an array of substantive legal topics, pulling in recent court decisions, new laws, and important shifts in culture and technology. The book centers on feminist legal theories, including equal treatment theory, cultural feminism, dominance theory, critical race feminism, lesbian feminism, postmodern feminism, and ecofeminism. Readers will find new material on women in politics, gender and globalization, and the promise and danger of expanding social media. Updated statistics and empirical analysis appear throughout. At its core, Feminist Legal Theory shows the importance of the roles of law and feminist legal theory in shaping contemporary gender issues"--Unedited summary from book cover.
Download or read book Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr Legal Theory and Judicial Restraint written by Frederic R. Kellogg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, is considered by many to be the most influential American jurist. The voluminous literature devoted to his writings and legal thought, however, is diverse and inconsistent. In this study, Frederic R. Kellogg follows Holmes's intellectual path from his early writings through his judicial career. He offers a fresh perspective that addresses the views of Holmes's leading critics and explains his relevance to the controversy over judicial activism and restraint. Holmes is shown to be an original legal theorist who reconceived common law as a theory of social inquiry and who applied his insights to constitutional law. From his empirical and naturalist perspective on law, with its roots in American pragmatism, emerged Holmes's distinctive judicial and constitutional restraint. Kellogg distinguishes Holmes from analytical legal positivism and contrasts him with a range of thinkers.
Download or read book Philosophy of Law written by Raymond Wacks and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-02 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Raymond Wacks reveals the intriguing and challenging nature of legal philosophy, exploring the notion of law and its role in our lives. He refers to key thinkers from Aristotle to Rawls, from Bentham to Derrida and looks at the central questions behind legal theory, and law's relation to justice, morality, and democracy.