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This volume explores the importance of constitutivism for legal studies. It brings together world-renowned practical philosophers and legal theorists, whom systematically and innovatively address key dimensions of the relationships between constitutivism and theoretical study of law.
Understood one way, the branch of contemporary philosophical ethics that goes by the label "metaethics" concerns certain second-order questions about ethics-questions not in ethics, but rather ones about our thought and talk about ethics, and how the ethical facts (insofar as there are any) fit into reality. Analogously, the branch of contemporary philosophy of law that is often called "general jurisprudence" deals with certain second order questions about law- questions not in the law, but rather ones about our thought and talk about the law, and how legal facts (insofar as there are any) fit into reality. Put more roughly (and using an alternative spatial metaphor), metaethics concerns a range of foundational questions about ethics, whereas general jurisprudence concerns analogous questions about law. As these characterizations suggest, the two sub-disciplines have much in common, and could be thought to run parallel to each other. Yet, the connections between the two are currently mostly ignored by philosophers, or at least under-scrutinized. The new essays collected in this book are aimed at changing this state of affairs. Dimensions of Normativity collects together works by metaethicists and legal philosophers that address a number of issues that are of common interest, with the goal of accomplishing a new rapprochement between the two sub-disciplines.
In Philosophy of Law, Andrei Marmor provides a comprehensive analysis of contemporary debates about the fundamental nature of law—an issue that has been at the heart of legal philosophy for centuries. What the law is seems to be a matter of fact, but this fact has normative significance: it tells people what they ought to do. Marmor argues that the myriad questions raised by the factual and normative features of law actually depend on the possibility of reduction—whether the legal domain can be explained in terms of something else, more foundational in nature. In addition to exploring the major issues in contemporary legal thought, Philosophy of Law provides a critical analysis of the people and ideas that have dominated the field in past centuries. It will be essential reading for anyone curious about the nature of law.
A focus on reasons for action and practical reason is the perspective chosen by many contemporary legal philosophers for the analysis of some central questions of their discipline. This book offers a critical evaluation of that approach, by carefully examining the empirical, logical and normative problems hidden behind the concepts of `reason for action' and `practical reasoning'. Unlike most other works in this field, it is a meta-theoretical study which analyses and compares how different theories use the notion of reason in their reconstruction of problems concerning issues such as normativity, the acceptance of norms, or the justification of judicial decisions. This book is directed primarily to scholars specializing in legal theory and concerned with the contribution practical philosophy can make to it, but it also contains important arguments and insights for all those interested in the controversy between legal positivists and their critics, in the theory of human action or in reason-based practical theories in general.
Crossing the usual boundaries of abstract legal theory, this book considers actual charter systems - legal systems with explicitly posited moral-political rights, such as those of Canada and the United States - as well as cases in constitutional adjudication. It shows the worth of careful reflection on methodological and meta-theoretical issues for a comprehensive account of a present-day legal system which is fast becoming the norm. The author explicitly connects the ongoing Methodology Debate within legal philosophy to constitutional adjudication and Canadian law. By drawing out the implications of the Methodology Debate and the challenge of giving a proper account of constitutional adjudication in a general theory of law, the study examines how a descriptive, morally and politically neutral legal theory can deal with epistemic uncertainty - uncertainty about the actual status of moral-political legal provisions and their jurisprudential function - in a thoroughgoing manner. It also demonstrates the merits of a minimalist version of Legal Positivism with regard to the practical importance of charters in charter systems and societies.
This book offers a critical appraisal of Karl Olivecrona’s legal philosophy. Based on Olivecrona’s critique of the view that law has binding force, the analysis of the concept and function of a legal rule, and the idea that law is a matter of organized force, the book argues that Olivecrona’s legal philosophy is a unique contribution to twentieth century legal philosophy. It shows how Olivecrona’s philosophy can be used in the assessment of contemporary theories of law, such as those put forward by Hart, Raz, Dworkin, and Alexy. In addition, the book argues that Olivecrona’s various discussions of theories defended by key people in the history of legal and political philosophy are highly interesting contributions. They not only increase our understanding of the legal and political philosophy of previous generations, but also enhances our insight into legal-philosophical questions that remain with us today.
Ambitious legal thinkers have become mesmerized by moral philosophy, believing that great figures in the philosophical tradition hold the keys to understanding and improving law and justice and even to resolving the most contentious issues of constitutional law. They are wrong, contends Richard Posner in this book. Posner characterizes the current preoccupation with moral and constitutional theory as the latest form of legal mystification--an evasion of the real need of American law, which is for a greater understanding of the social, economic, and political facts out of which great legal controversies arise. In pursuit of that understanding, Posner advocates a rebuilding of the law on the pragmatic basis of open-minded and systematic empirical inquiry and the rejection of cant and nostalgia--the true professionalism foreseen by Oliver Wendell Holmes a century ago. A bracing book that pulls no punches and leaves no pieties unpunctured or sacred cows unkicked, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory offers a sweeping tour of the current scene in legal studies--and a hopeful prospect for its future.
This second volume of the Vienna Lectures on Legal Philosophy series presents 11 chapters which are dedicated to normativist and anti-normativist approaches to law. The book focuses on the question: What is law? Is it a set of obligations imposed on courts and officials to guide their conduct and to assess the conduct of others? Or is it the result of settlements reached by opposing sides that accept arrangements and understandings to sustain peaceful cooperation? If law is the former its significance and meaning are independent of a shifting constellation of forces; if it is not, then what the law says depends on the relative power and prestige of the actors involved. With contributions from some of the leading scholars in the field, the collection presents a balanced and nuanced assessment of what is perhaps the most controversial debate in contemporary legal philosophy today.