Legal thought and philosophy
Subtitle: what legal scholarship is about
By: Bert van Roermund, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Contributors: Edward Elgar Publishing
Publisher: Edward Elgar
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 304
ISBN-13: 9781781955499; 9781781955512
Copyright date: 2013
Subjects: Law; Philosophy; Jurisprudence
Description: This book proves to be an excellent guide through the labyrinth of law. Its crucial point is legal order viewed from the perspective of a situated "We". Jurisprudence appears as an implicit sort of thinking, embedded in moral, political, epistemological, and linguistic contexts. Numerous example cases lead us from everyday issues to the abysses of violence. Anyone who practices or studies law will highly profit from reading this book. One sees how law functions by being more than mere law. Bernhard Waldenfels, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany Legal Thought and Philosophy clarifies background questions in legal research projects, such as the relationship between law and justice, law and politics, law and knowledge, facts and norms, normativity and validity, constituent and constitutional power, and rule and context. It provides advanced students in law and philosophy with an account of legal thinking that combines analytical and phenomenological insights. From a conception of justice as principled political self-restraint, the book explains why there are moral reasons to separate law from morality conceptually and in what sense a legal order is positive--that is, set by authority and bound up with history. The book explores the conditions under which law may become an object of knowledge and theorising, before finally discussing how these features come together in law as rule-following by citizens, officials, judges, and legislators alike. Addressing advanced students in law and philosophy, this key book: bridges separate traditions in legal philosophy (in particular analytical philosophy and phenomenology), develops a view of law as an institution of authority from a conception of justice in the socio-political relationship between we and the others, presents a systematic account of normativity and validity, explains in what sense law is doing things with rules.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-294) and index.
Table of contents: title: 1. Legal order; title: 2. Justice, rights and human dignity; title: 3. Positive law and sovereign authority; title: 4. Legal knowledge and legal doctrine : validity of law; title: 5. Following the law as following a rule.