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Full-Text Articles in Law
Reevaluating Legal Theory, Jeffrey Pojanowski
Reevaluating Legal Theory, Jeffrey Pojanowski
Journal Articles
Must a good general theory of law incorporate what is good for persons in general? This question has been at the center of methodological debates in general jurisprudence for decades. Answering “no,” Julie Dickson’s book Evaluation and Legal Theory offered both a clear and concise conspectus of positivist methodology, as well as a response to the longstanding objection that such an approach has to evaluate the data it studies rather than simply describe facts about legal systems. She agreed that legal positivism must evaluate. At the same time, she argued, it is possible to offer an evaluative theory of the …
Redrawing The Dividing Lines Between Natural Law And Positivism(S), Jeffrey Pojanowski
Redrawing The Dividing Lines Between Natural Law And Positivism(S), Jeffrey Pojanowski
Journal Articles
Anglo-American jurisprudence, before it insulated itself in conceptual analysis and defined itself in opposition to broader questions, was properly a “sociable science,” to use Professor Postema’s phrase from his symposium article. And, in part due to the exemplars of history, so it may become again. By drawing on Bentham and Hobbes, Professor Dan Priel’s Toward Classical Positivism points forward toward more fruitful methods of jurisprudence while illuminating the recent history and current state of inquiry. His article demonstrates the virtues and promise of a more catholic approach to jurisprudence. It also raises challenging questions about the direction to take this …
Allocating Risks And Suffering: Some Hidden Traps, John M. Finnis
Allocating Risks And Suffering: Some Hidden Traps, John M. Finnis
Journal Articles
The economic analysis of which Adam Smith is a principal founder is helpful in practical reasoning about problems of justice precisely insofar as it systematically calls attention to the side-effects of individual choices and actions and behavior. Still, it would be a mistake to conclude that we need only a more adequate account of the benefits and burdens up for distribution or allocation by those responsible for the common good or general fate. We need also to bear in mind what Smith did not forget and what economics does not comprehend, the requirements of commutative justice. To see this, we …
On Reason And Authority In Law's Empire, John M. Finnis
On Reason And Authority In Law's Empire, John M. Finnis
Journal Articles
Law's Empire will shape jurisprudence by its admirably resourceful attention to understanding a community's law "internally". It promotes reflective understanding of the practical argumentation constitutive of the attitude(s) in which that law subsists. But the book neglects some of practical understanding's resources of political and moral theory, and overestimates practical reasoning's power to identify options as the best and the right)
The "Natural Law Tradition", John M. Finnis
The "Natural Law Tradition", John M. Finnis
Journal Articles
This "tradition of natural law theory" has three main features: First, critique and rejection of ethical scepticism, dogmatism and conventionalism; Second, clarification of the methodology of descriptive and explanatory social theories (e.g., political science, economics, jurisprudence .... ); Third, critique and rejection of aggregative conceptions of the right and the just (e.g., consequentialism, utilitarianism, wealth-maximization, "proportionalism"...).
Developments In Judicial Jurisprudence, John M. Finnis
Developments In Judicial Jurisprudence, John M. Finnis
Journal Articles
The purpose of this Comment is to explore briefly the fundamentals of what Prof. H. L. A. Hart has called "the contribution offered by the judges to the jurisprudence of our day", and to indicate in outline the disparity between this contribution and those of the most recent academic writings.