Routledge

About the Lawcards Series

Jurisprudence Lawcards Checklist

What you need to know…

Chapter 1 The nature of jurisprudence

  • Definitions of jurisprudence
  • Key jurisprudential questions: what is the law/what constitutes good law
  • Austin's division between analytical and normative jurisprudence
  • Other subdivisions of jurisprudence
  • The terminology of jurisprudence
  • Formalist and contents approaches to moral philosophy
  • Hart's definitions of positivism
  • Branches of utilitarianism
  • General questions arising from jurisprudence's two key questions 

Chapter 2 Natural law theory

  • What is natural law?
  • Sources of the higher principles reflected in law
  • Key tenets of natural law theory
  • The development of natural law theory throughout the ages
  • Aquinas' integration of the rationalist and religious approaches to natural law
  • JM Finnis' modern natural law theory
  • Practical reasonableness and the objective goods
  • How is the ‘ought' derived from the ‘is' for Finnis?
  • The Principle of Generic Consistency
  • Main criticisms of natural law theory

Chapter 3 Positivist theories of law

  • What is the positivist approach to law?
  • The ‘is' and ‘ought' questions in legal positivism
  • Devices used to identify law
  • Imperative theories of law
  • Bentham's approach to law
  • The distinction between expositional and censorial jurisprudence
  • What is good law for Bentham?
  • Austin's command theory of law
  • Elements of the statement “law is the command of a sovereign backed by sanctions”
  • Hart's criticism of Austin
  • Kelsen's pure theory of law
  • Kelsen's distinction between primary and secondary norms
  • Kelsen's distinction between subjective/objective meanings of actions
  • The hierarchy of norms/concept of the basic norm
  • Criticisms applicable to imperative theories

Chapter 4 Theoretical alternatives to the command models of law

  • Hart on coercion, rules and morality
  • Distinction between obedience and compliance
  • Hart's definition of a ‘rule'
  • Primary and secondary rules
  • The systemic quality of law
  • Rule of recognition/rules of change/rules of adjudication
  • The “internal morality of law” according to Fuller
  • Fuller's eight rules of proper law-making
  • The Hart-Fuller debate
  • Hart's criticisms of Fuller's “inner morality of law”
  • Dworkin's criticisms of natural law and legal positivism
  • Dworkin's criticism of Hart
  • The difference between rules and principles for Dworkin
  • Dworkin and judicial discretion

Chapter 5 Utilitarianism

  • Bentham's utilitarianism: key elements
  • The principle of utility
  • The felicific calculus
  • The science of legislation/the art of legislation
  • The Panopticon
  • Criticisms of Bentham's utilitarianism
  • J.S. Mill and qualitative altruism
  • The place of justice in Mill's work
  • The role of liberty in utilitarian theory
  • Utilitarianism and the economic analysis of law
  • Posner's economics of justice

Chapter 6 Rights

  • Hohfeld's four categories of basic rights
  • Jural opposites/jural correlatives/jural contradictories
  • Rawls and justice as fairness
  • Rawls' criticism of utilitarianism
  • The original position and veil of ignorance
  • Rawls' two principles of justice
  • Nozick's theory of entitlements
  • Dworkin's rights thesis
  • Dworkin's principles and policies
  • Dworkin's rights as ‘trumps'

Chapter 7 Theories of law and society

  • Difference between sociological jurisprudence, sociology of law and socio-legal studies
  • Central assumptions of sociological jurisprudence
  • Weber's three ideal stages of development 
  • Durkheim and social solidarity
  • What is functionalism?
  • What are socio-legal studies?
  • Sociology of law
  • Unger's three types of law
  • Marx's six stages of development
  • Historical/dialectical materialism
  • Pashukanis
  • Marxism today

Chapter 8 Feminist legal theory

  • Feminism as political activism
  • The equality/difference debate
  • The public/private divide
  • Feminism and power
  • The feminist challenge to the reasonable man test
  • The question of freedom
  • How does feminist legal theory relate to legal practice?
  • Feminism and political philosophy 
  • Key figures in feminist theory

Chapter 9 Critical legal studies

  • What are critical legal studies?
  • In what way do they differ from more traditional critiques of the law?
  • The history of the CLS movement
  • The claims and objectives of the American crits
  • The decline of American CLS
  • Freud's parallel between law and the law of the unconscious
  • The Freudian myth of the origin of the law
  • Lacan's inversion of the Freudian premise
  • Foucault and the genealogical method
  • Structuralism/post-structuralism
  • CLS and deconstruction