The Philosophy Of Positive Law

In this first book-length study of positive law, James Bernard Murphy rewrites central chapters in the history of jurisprudence by uncovering a fundamental continuity among four great legal philosophers: Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Hobbes, and John Austin. In their theories of positive law, Murphy argues, these thinkers represent successive chapters in a single fascinating story. That story revolves around a fundamental ambiguity: is law positive because it is deliberately imposed (as opposed to customary law) or because it lacks moral necessity (as opposed to natural law)? These two senses of positive law are not coextensive yet the discourse of positive law oscillates unstably between them. What, then, is the relation between being deliberately imposed and lacking moral necessity? Murphy demonstrates how the discourse of positive law incorporates both normative and descriptive dimensions of law, and he discusses the relation of positive law not only to jurisprudence but also to the philosophy of language, ethics, theories of social order, and biblical law.

Dupret explores how the concept of positive law operated in the Muslim world.

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This book presents a comprehensive defence of legal positivism on the basis of a novel account of social conventions. Marmor argues that the law is founded on constitutive conventions, and that consequently moral values cannot determine what the law is. On the basis of a theory of socialconventions and an analysis of law's authoritative nature, the book sets out the scope of law in relation to moral and other critical values. The book also maintains, however, that moral values are objective. It comprises a detailed analysis of the concept of objectivity, arguing that many aspectsof the law, and of moral values, are metaphysically objective.

Excerpt from Lectures on Jurisprudence: The Philosophy of Positive Law After his death Mrs. Austin (in 1861) by the advice of friends edited a reprint of the volume containing the Province, ' with the preface above referred to. This was followed two years later by two volumes containing all that by extreme diligence and assiduity could be found and put together of Austin's work. Subsequently the valuable notes of the original Lectures taken by J. S. Mill, who was a constant attendant upon the course, were placed in Mrs. Austin's hands for another edition. She commenced the prepara tion, but her death left the work unaccomplished, and it devolved, at the request of the executors, on the present editor, whose edition was published in 1869. Of this the edition of 1873 is a reprint with a few slight verbal corrections. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.