Modern Jurisprudence

The second edition of this book provides a concise and accessible guide to modern jurisprudence, offering an examination of the major theories as well as highlighting principal themes such as legality and justice. Together with new material, the second edition explores the historical developments and ideas that give modern thinking its distinctive shape. A key feature of the book is that readers are not simply presented with opposing theories, but are guided through the rival standpoints on the basis of a coherent line of reflection from which an overall sense of the subject can be gained. Chapters on Hart, Fuller, Rawls, Dworkin and Finnis take the reader systematically through the terrain of modern legal philosophy, tracing the issues back to fundamental questions of philosophy, and indicating lines of criticism that result in a fresh and original perspective on the subject.

This book provides a concise and accessible guide to modern jurisprudence, offering an examination of the major theories and systematic discussion of themes such as legality and justice. It gives readers a better understanding of the rival viewpoints by exploring the historical developments which give modern thinking its distinctive shape, and placing law in its political context. A key feature of the book is that readers are not simply presented with opposing theories, but are guided through the rival standpoints on the basis of a coherent line of reflection from which an overall sense of the subject can be gained. Chapters on Hart, Fuller, Rawls, Dworkin and Finnis take the reader systematically through the terrain of modern legal philosophy, tracing the issues back to fundamental questions of philosophy, and indicating lines of criticism that build to a fresh and original perspective on the subject.

Collective monograph

This impressive volume is the first attempt to look at the intertwined histories of natural law and the laws of nature in early modern Europe. These notions became central to jurisprudence and natural philosophy in the seventeenth century; the debates that informed developments in those fields drew heavily on theology and moral philosophy, and vice versa. Historians of science, law, philosophy, and theology from Europe and North America here come together to address these central themes and to consider the question; was the emergence of natural law both in European jurisprudence and natural philosophy merely a coincidence, or did these disciplinary traditions develop within a common conceptual matrix, in which theological, philosophical, and political arguments converged to make the analogy between legal and natural orders compelling. This book will stimulate new debate in the areas of intellectual history and the history of philosophy, as well as the natural and human sciences in general.

This book argues that at the core of legal philosophys principal debates there is essentially one issue judicial impartiality. Keeping this issue to the forefront, Raban's approach sheds much light on many difficult and seemingly perplexing jurisprudential debates. Modern Legal Theory and Judicial Impartiality offers a fresh and penetrating examination of two of the most celebrated modern legal theorists: HLA Hart and Ronald Dworkin. The book explains the relations between these two scholars and other theorists and schools of thought (including Max Weber, Lon Fuller, and the law and economics movement), offering both novices and experts an innovative and lucid look at modern legal theory. The book is written in an engaging and conversational style, tackling highly sophisticated issues in a concise and accessible manner. Undergraduates in jurisprudence and legal theory, as well as more advanced readers, will find it clear and challenging.