Search Results

Islamic Natural Law Theories

Anver M. Emon

This book offers the first sustained jurisprudential inquiry into Islamic natural law theory. It introduces readers to competing theories of Islamic natural law theory based on close readings of ... More

This book offers the first sustained jurisprudential inquiry into Islamic natural law theory. It introduces readers to competing theories of Islamic natural law theory based on close readings of Islamic legal sources from as early as the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. In popular debates about Islamic law, modern Muslims perpetuate an image of Islamic law as legislated by God, to whom the devout are bound to obey. Reason alone cannot obligate obedience; at most it can confirm or corroborate what is established by source texts endowed with divine authority. This book shows, however, that premodern Sunni Muslim jurists were not so resolute. They asked whether and how reason alone can be the basis for asserting the good and the bad, and thereby obligations and prohibitions of the Shari'a. They theorized about the authority of reason amidst competing theologies of God. For these jurists, nature became the link between the divine will and human reason. Nature is the product of God's creative power. Nature is created by God and reflects his goodness; consequently nature is fused with both fact and value. As a divinely created good, nature can be investigated to reach both empirical and normative conclusions about the good to be pursued. By recasting the Islamic legal tradition in terms of legal philosophy, the book sheds substantial light on an uncharted tradition of natural law theory and offers critical insights into contemporary global debates about Islamic law and reform.Less

Law and Philosophy

Michael Freeman and Ross Harrison (eds)

Current Legal Issues is based upon an annual colloquium held at University College London. Each year, leading scholars from around the world gather to discuss the relationship between law and another ... More

Current Legal Issues is based upon an annual colloquium held at University College London. Each year, leading scholars from around the world gather to discuss the relationship between law and another discipline of thought. Each colloqium examines how the external discipline is conceived in legal thought and argument, how the law is pictured in that discipline, and analyses points of controversy in the use, and abuse, of extra-legal arguments within legal theory and practice. Law and Philosophy, the tenth volume in the Current Legal Issues series, contains a broad range of essays by scholars interested in the interactions between law and philosophy. The collection displays ways in which philosophy can be applied to legal questions as well as the interactions between them. The two central themes are the lively and contentious contemporary debate about the nature of the law and the always relevant normative debate about what the state should do and the interactions between State, the citizen, and the law.Less

Reflections on 'The Concept of Law'

A. W. Brian Simpson

HLA Hart's The Concept of Law is one of the most influential works of philosophy of the 20th century, redefining the field of legal philosophy and introducing generations of students to philosophical ... More

HLA Hart's The Concept of Law is one of the most influential works of philosophy of the 20th century, redefining the field of legal philosophy and introducing generations of students to philosophical reflection on the nature of law. Since its publication in 1961 an industry of academic research and debate has grown up around the book, disputing, refining, and developing Hart's work. Under the sheer volume of competing interpretations of the book the original contexts — cultural and intellectual — that shaped Hart's project can be obscured. This book attempts to sweep aside the volumes of academic criticism and return to ‘Troy I’, revealing the world of post-war Oxford that produced Hart and his famous book. Drawing on personal experience of studying and teaching in Oxford at the time Hart developed The Concept of Law, this book recreates the social and intellectual culture of Oxford philosophy and the law faculty in the 1950s. It traces Hart's early work and influences, within and outside Oxford, showing how Hart developed his picture of philosophy and its potential for enriching the understanding of law. It also lays bare the painful shortcomings of post-war Oxford academia, depicting a world of eccentric dons and intellectual Cyclopses — isolated and closed to broad, interdisciplinary exchange — arguing that Hart did not escape from the limitations of his intellectual world.Less

Institutionalized Reason: The Jurisprudence of Robert Alexy

Matthias Klatt (ed.)

This volume gathers leading figures from legal philosophy and constitutional theory to offer a critical examination of the work of Robert Alexy. The chapters explore the issues surrounding the ... More

This volume gathers leading figures from legal philosophy and constitutional theory to offer a critical examination of the work of Robert Alexy. The chapters explore the issues surrounding the complex relations between rights, law, and morality and reflect on Alexy's distinctive work on these issues. The focus across the chapters is on Alexy's main pre-occupations — his anti-positivist views on the nature of law, his approach to the nature of legal reasoning, and his understanding of constitutional rights as legal principles. In an extended response to the contributions in the volume, Alexy develops his views on these central issues. The volume's juxtaposition of Anglo-American and German perspectives brings into focus the differences as well as the prospect of cross-fertilization between Continental and Anglo-American work in jurisprudence.Less

The Practice of Value

Joseph Raz

R. Jay Wallace (ed.)

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, which honor the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner, are presented annually at each of nine universities in the United States ... More

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, which honor the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner, are presented annually at each of nine universities in the United States and Great Britain. They were established at the University of California, Berkeley, beginning in the 2000/1 academic year. This book is an exploration of a pervasive but puzzling aspect of our world: value. At the core of the book are the Tanner Lectures delivered at Berkeley in 2001 by the author, who has been one of the leading figures in moral and legal philosophy since the 1970s. His aim is to make sense of the dependence of value on social practice, without falling back on cultural relativism. In response, three philosophers, Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams, offer different approaches to the subject. The book begins with an introduction by Jay Wallace, setting the scene for what follows, and ends with a response from the author to his commentators. The result is a debate about the relations between human values and human life.Less

Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Law: Volume 1

Leslie Green and Brian Leiter (eds)

This work is an annual forum for some of the best new philosophical work on law, by both senior and junior scholars from around the world. The chapters range widely over issues in general ... More

This work is an annual forum for some of the best new philosophical work on law, by both senior and junior scholars from around the world. The chapters range widely over issues in general jurisprudence (the nature of law, adjudication, and legal reasoning), the philosophical foundations of specific areas of law (from criminal law to evidence to international law), the history of legal philosophy, and related philosophical topics that illuminate the problems of legal theory.Less

Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy

H. L. A. Hart

The chapters in this book were written in the twenty-eight years following H. L. A. Hart's inaugural lecture in 1953 as Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford. Originally published in England, the ... More

The chapters in this book were written in the twenty-eight years following H. L. A. Hart's inaugural lecture in 1953 as Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford. Originally published in England, the United States, and elsewhere, in many different journals and books, these chapters cover a wide range of topics. They include Professor Hart's first attempt to demonstrate the relevance of linguistic philosophy to jurisprudence, and his first defence of the form of legal positivism later developed in his Concept of Law; his studies of the distinctive teaching of American and Scandinavian jurisprudence; a general survey of the problems of legal philosophy; and an examination of three different attempts to provide a foundation for basic human rights or liberties, and of the notion of ‘social solidarity’ as a justification for the enforcement of conventional morality. Five of the chapters are devoted to the work of Jhering, Kelsen, Holmes, and Lon Fuller. The final chapter brings a philosophical distinction to bear on the solution to a perplexity which has long plagued lawyers, concerning the notion of an attempt to commit a crime. The Introduction gives an account of the main influences on Professor Hart's work; considers the main criticisms of it; and identifies the points where he now considers he was mistaken.Less

The Legacy of H.L.A. Hart: Legal, Political, and Moral Philosophy

Matthew H. Kramer, Claire Grant, Ben Colburn, and Antony Hatzistavrou (eds)

This book grows out of a major British Academy Symposium held in 2007 to mark the centenary of the birth of H. L. A. Hart, the most important legal philosopher and one of the most important political ... More

This book grows out of a major British Academy Symposium held in 2007 to mark the centenary of the birth of H. L. A. Hart, the most important legal philosopher and one of the most important political philosophers of the twentieth century. The book brings together contributions from eighteen of the world's foremost legal and political philosophers — Antony Duff, Cécile Fabre, John Finnis, John Gardner, Leslie Green, Brad Hooker, David Lyons, Sir Neil MacCormick, Susan Mendus, Philip Pettit, Gerald Postema, Alan Ryan, Hillel Steiner, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Jeremy Waldron, Wilfrid Waluchow, Leif Wenar, and Richard Wright — who explore the many areas of philosophy in which Hart produced important writings. As the title of the volume suggests, the contributors train their scrutiny more on Hart's legacy than on the man himself. Though most of them discuss his work extensively, each of them is especially concerned to engage in original analyses of philosophical problems that were tackled by Hart. All the main topics of his philosophical writings are covered: (1) general jurisprudence and legal positivism; (2) criminal responsibility and punishment; (3) theories of rights; (4) theories of justice; (5) causation in the law; and (6) toleration and liberty. As was evident from the strikingly cosmopolitan character of the audience at the British Academy Symposium, Hart's legacy is a matter of importance for legal and political and moral philosophers throughout the world. The present volume will stand as a landmark in the exploration of the fascinating philosophical issues on which that legacy is focused.Less