This book brings together leading legal theorists to present original philosophical work on the concept of law - the central question of jurisprudence. It covers five broad topics: firstly it addresses debates concerning the methodology of jurisprudence. In Part II it focuses on the notion of a legal system and its coercive nature, while Part III explores the relationships between law and morality, the traditional point of contention between positivist and non-positivist theories of law. Part IV then examines questions regarding law’s normative character and relationships with practical reason. Lastly, the final part introduces two novel theoretical approaches to conceptual jurisprudence.

This is the most up-to-date comprehensive survey of the best work in analytic jurisprudence from Austin to the present, including contributions from the latest generation's brightest legal theorists. It begins with the earliest writings in natural law theory and positivism, tracing the history of the debate through the Hart-Fuller and Hart-Dworkin disputes to the current debates. The last third of the volume is devoted to the most influential papers on the hottest contemporary issues. The approach is analytic and hands-on. It seeks to motivate interest in foundational questions of law while simultaneously developing the skills the aspiring lawyer must have to succeed in the practice of law. To develop the student's ability to theorize on questions in analytic jurisprudence by providing a firm historical foundation before immersing her in the contemporary debates, where she will participate in the conversation. The book improves on existing text offerings in a number of respects. It provides the most comprehensive view of the field. The analytic approach is ascendant among researchers in law schools and philosophy departments worldwide who study the issues covered in this text. Accordingly, it is fair to say that this book provides, far and away, the most up-to-date and accurate snapshot of the work being done in conceptual issues regarding law so much so that it is suitable for use as a sourcebook for beginning research. Unlike the methodology of continental philosophy, the analytic methodology used in all the essays in this text employs the very same skills that a young lawyer is expected to have, and will deepen the law students' argumentative and verbal abilities.

Understanding the Nature of Law explores methodological questions about how best to explain law. Among these questions, one is central: is there something about law which determines how it should be theorized? This novel book explains the importance of

Fifty years on from its original publication, HLA Hart's The Concept of Law is widely recognized as the most important work of legal philosophy published in the twentieth century, and remains the starting point for most students coming to the subject for the first time. In this third edition, Leslie Green provides a new introduction that sets the book in the context of subsequent developments in social and political philosophy, clarifying misunderstandings of Hart's project and highlighting central tensions and problems in the work.

Normative Jurisprudence aims to reinvigorate normative legal scholarship that both criticizes positive law and suggests reforms for it, on the basis of stated moral values and legalistic ideals. It looks sequentially and in detail at the three major traditions in jurisprudence – natural law, legal positivism and critical legal studies – that have in the past provided philosophical foundations for just such normative scholarship. Over the last fifty years or so, all of these traditions, although for different reasons, have taken a number of different turns – toward empirical analysis, conceptual analysis or Foucaultian critique – and away from straightforward normative criticism. As a result, normative legal scholarship – scholarship that is aimed at criticism and reform – is now lacking a foundation in jurisprudential thought. The book criticizes those developments and suggests a return, albeit with different and in many ways larger challenges, to this traditional understanding of the purpose of legal scholarship.

A wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of modern legal scholarship and the evolution of law in America What do Catharine MacKinnon, the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, and Lani Guinier have in common? All have, in recent years, become flashpoints for different approaches to legal reform. In the last quarter century, the study and practice of law have been profoundly influenced by a number of powerful new movements; academics and activists alike are rethinking the interaction between law and society, focusing more on the tangible effects of law on human lives than on its procedural elements. In this wide-ranging and comprehensive volume, Gary Minda surveys the current state of legal scholarship and activism, providing an indispensable guide to the evolution of law in America.

This law school casebook starts from the premise that cyberlaw is not simply a set of legal rules governing online interaction, but a lens through which to re-examine general problems of policy, jurisprudence, and culture. The book goes beyond simply plugging Internet-related cases into a series of doctrinal categories, instead emphasizing conceptual issues that extend across the spectrum of cyberspace legal dilemmas. While the book addresses all of the "traditional" subject matter areas of cyberlaw, it asks readers to consider both how traditional legal doctrines can be applied to cyberspace conduct, and how the special problems encountered in that application can teach us something about those traditional legal doctrines. The fifth edition has been updated, shortened, and reconceptualized to make the book even more effective as a teaching tool and to illuminate new debates at the heart of this evolving field. The book groups the material into units addressing the who, how, and what of governance/regulation--fundamental questions that pertain to any legal system, in cyberspace or elsewhere. The fifth edition also includes updated treatment throughout, as well as a more stream-lined approach that should make an already effective casebook even more unified and teachable.

Morality and the Nature of Law explores the conceptual relationship between morality and the criteria that determine what counts as law in a given societythe criteria of legal validity. Is it necessary condition for a legal system to include moral criteria of legal validity? Is it even possible for a legal system to have moral criteria of legal validity? The book considers the views of natural law theorists ranging from Blackstone to Dworkin and rejects them, arguing that it is not conceptually necessary that the criteria of legal validity include moral norms. Further, it rejects the exclusive positivist view, arguing instead that it is conceptually possible for the criteria of validity to include moral norms. In the process of considering such questions, this book considers Raz's views concerning the nature of authority and Shapiro's views about the guidance function of law, which have been thought to repudiate the conceptual possibility of moral criteria of legal validity. The book, then, articulates a thought experiment that shows that it is possible for a legal system to have such criteria and concludes with a chapter that argues that any legal system, like that of the United States, which affords final authority over the content of the law to judges who are fallible with respect to the requirements of morality is a legal system with purely source-based criteria of validity.

Leading legal scholars and philosophers provide a breadth of perspectives and inspire stimulating debate around the transformations of jurisprudence in a globalized world. This innovative book considers modifications to jurisprudence’s methodological approaches driven by globalization, the concepts and theoretical tools required to account for putative new forms of legal phenomena, and normative issues relating to the legitimacy and democratic character of these legal orders.