If Raz and Dworkin disagree over how law should be characterized, 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? This book tackles methodological or meta-theoretical issues such as these, and does so by answering the question: to what extent, and in what sense, must a legal theorist make value judgements about his...

This book develops the rudiments of a sociological perspective on state law and legal theory. It outlines a distinctive approach to theoretical enquiry that offers an improved understanding of law as a social and institutional phenomenon. The book draws upon Max Weber's sociological and juristic writings as a context in which to explore themes arising or selectively developed from a critical reassessment of key aspects of H.L.A. Hart's theory of law. The discussion initially centers around three problematical areas or -Gordian Knots- - essentially weaknesses in the analytical nucleus of The...

Law and Aesthetics draws on the work of poets as well as philosophers. Taking as its starting point Shelley's assertion that poets are unacknowledged legislators, the book suggests that there is a way of thinking that, as yet, has not been taken up by those who make use of literary aesthetics to understand law. The book tracks this aesthetic thinking through the failures of critical legal studies and stages an encounter with psychoanalysis, before suggesting that an aesthetics of law can be exhumed from Nietzsche's work. The aesthetic is a call to the creative: fashion new law. A review of...

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,...

Niklas Luhmann's sociological theory treats law-along with politics, economics, media, and ethics-as systems of communication. His theory not only offers profound and novel insights into the character of the legal system in modern society, but also provides an explanation for the role of jurisprudence as part of that legal system. In this work, the authors explore and develop Luhmann's claim that jurisprudence is part of law's self-description, a part of the legal system which, as a particular kind of legal communication, orientates legal operations by explaining law to itself. This approach...

This book offers a -genealogical- explanation of law's normativity. The term -genealogical- conveys a commitment to a non-metaphysical type of enquiry. While it explains how law, as a normative phenomenon, comes about, it does not seek to ground law's normativity in anything but the context of social interaction giving rise to it. Legal normativity is brought about on a daily basis. Whether in revolutionary circumstances or in the quotidian need for judges, lawmakers, or citizens to balance law's demands with those of morality or prudence, our ability to bind ourselves through law ultimately...

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 conceptualized risk in particular ways, and ideas of risk have had significant influence in key elements of legal theory including questions of justice and responsibility. This...

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. His work admirably combines the rigor 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. Law, Rights and Discourse...

Feminist critique has made a significant impact both in terms of informing our theoretical approach to law and politics as social phenomena, and in terms of encouraging the development of increased opportunities and protection for individual women. Despite its successes, however, feminist thought has suffered from internal disagreements and schisms. While united by their commitment to highlight and undermine gender-based discrimination, disparate feminist theorists have disagreed over a range of issues central to that project. In particular, there has been long-standing feminist debate over...

This long-awaited book, by the celebrated philosopher Antony Duff, offers a new perspective on the structures of criminal law and criminal liability. The book's starting point is a distinction between responsibility (understood as answerability) and liability, and a conception of responsibility as relational and practice-based. This focus on responsibility, as a matter of being answerable to those who have the standing to call one to account, throws new light on a range of questions in criminal law theory: on the question of criminalization, which can now be cast as the question of what we...