JURISPRUDENCE SEMINAR
(LAWH-4007) - 2 UNITS

The two core questions addressed in this course are what is the nature of law? and what is the rule of law? In answering the first question, we will look at the three major theories attempting to explain what law is: legal positivism, natural law, and law as integrity. The debate over the nature of law addresses two related, but separate issues: (1) what sort of thing is law? and (2) how can we tell law from non-law? In answering the second question, we will ask whether law some core moral features that constrain the actions of legal officials or the content or scope of laws.

Traditionally, American jurists have focused primarily on the question, what is adjudication? as answering the further question, what is law? The adjudication question produces three tendencies in legal analysis. First, it focuses almost exclusively upon the activities of judge, foreclosing consideration of other legal agents and their relation to the law. Second, adjudication gives prominence to the activity of publicly declaring the law (or the outcome of the case), and so to the decisions of those state appellate and federal courts which publish their opinions (as opposed to trial courts that do not). Third, adjudication tends to prioritize the normative or causal constraints on the judge, and so treats nature of the rule of law as part of the question of the nature of law itself. We will take a different tack, and try to distinguish these separate questions, and evaluate the answers that prominent legal philosophers have given to these questions.

Through this course, you should become familiar with some of the central figures of the Anglo-American legal tradition, including Holmes, Frank, Hart, Fuller, Finnis, Dworkin, as well as more contemporary figures, such as Gardner and Waldron; their views on the nature of law; and the core theories of the rule of law and how they respond to different worries about law and its legitimacy.

Pass/Fail:
No

Prerequisites:
None