A dictionary of legal theory

Sample

John Brigham

"Theoretically sophisticated, and consistently fascinating, Material Law integrates law and society, political science, and popular culture in a truly interdisciplinary fasion. Brigham examines how the meaning of law is influenced by politics, reviewing, for example, whether the authority of global law supersedes that of national law in the context of Anglo-American cultural colonialism. What emerges is a well-reasoned look at how the authority of law constitutes what we see as real in our lives"--Jacket.

Sample

Stephen Guest

"This is a lucid and comprehensive introduction to, and critical assessment of, Ronald Dworkin's seminal contributions to legal and political philosophy. His theories have a complexity, originality, and moral power that have excited a wide range of academic and political thinkers, and even those who disagree with him acknowledge that his ideas must be confronted and given serious consideration. His enormous output of books and papers and his formidable profusion of lectures and seminars throughout the world, in addition to his teaching duties at Oxford and New York University, have made him a giant figure in contemporary thought." "In short, Dworkin's theory of law is that the nature of legal argument lies in the best moral interpretation of existing social practices. His theory of justice is that all political judgments ought to rest ultimately upon the injunction that people are equal as human beings, irrespective of the circumstances in which they are born." "Dworkin does not fit into an orthodox category. His theory of law is radical in that it sees legal argument primarily about rights yet conservative in seeing it as constrained by history. He is libertarian both in valuing ambition and in asserting a right to pornography, yet socialist in believing that no person has a right to a greater share of resources than anyone else. In particular, he advocates a system that would tax people on the resources they accumulate solely through their talent alone." "Because Dworkin writes for a number of audiences--sometimes the general public, sometimes academic lawyers, sometimes philosophers and economists--it is often difficult to identify the different strands of his thought. The book aims to make his theories clear and accessible and to give an overall picture of his thinking that is sympathetic yet rigorously argued." "This is the sixth book in the series Jurists: Profiles in Legal Theory."--Jacket.

Sample

Adam Gearey

"Law and Aesthetics draws on the work of poets as well as philosophers. Taking as its starting point Shelleys assertion that poets are unacknowledged legislators,the book suggests that there is a way of thinking that, as yet, has not been taken up by those who make use of literary aesthetics to understand law. The book tracks this aesthetic thinking through the failures of critical legal studies and stages an encounter with psychoanalysis, before suggesting that an aesthetics of law can be exhumed from Nietzsches work. The aesthetic is a call to the creative: fashion new law. A review of contemporary legal theory that makes use of aesthetic perspectives suggests that dissident and radical Nietzschean energies continue to animate legal thought. In the final chapter, an aesthetics of law is shown to make for an interruption of legal categories, and the generation of new legal relationships. The book concludes with a further meditation on Shelleys poetry, and a call to continue in the spirit of aesthetic reinvention."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Sample

John W. Carroll

John W. Carroll undertakes a careful philosophical examination of laws of nature, causation, and other related topics. He argues that laws of nature are not susceptible to the sort of philosophical treatment preferred by empiricists. Indeed, he shows that empirically pure matters of fact need not even determine what the laws are. Similar, and even stronger, conclusions are drawn about causation. Replacing the traditional view of laws and causation as requiring some kind of foundational legitimacy, the author argues that these phenomena are inextricably intertwined with everything else. This distinctively clear and detailed discussion of what it is to be a law will be valuable to a broad swathe of philosophers in metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of science.