Philosophy of Law reading list?
August 16, 2010 1:53 PM   Subscribe

I'm interested in Philosophy of Law / Jurisprudence. What primary materials should be on a reading list fit for a semester-long 400-level university course?

I'm mostly interested in the central philosophical issues in law, rather than philosophical commentary on contemporary legal issues. Some possible selections I have so far:

The Path of the Law, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
The Concept of Law, H.L.A. Hart
Naturalizing Jurisprudence, Brian Leiter
Law's Empire, Ronald Dworkin
The Morality of Law, Lon L. Fuller
How Judges Think, Richard Posner
A Theory of Justice, John Rawls
Jurisprudence: Realism in Theory and Practice, Karl Llewellyn
posted by Picklegnome to Education (10 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
A Theory of Justice, John Rawls

This book isn't really about philosophy of law or jurisprudence, rather it's about distributive justice. I don't think it is appropriate in a course on jurisprudence.
posted by jayder at 2:03 PM on August 16, 2010


Posner is a rock star, but not as philosophically astute as he--or the legal profession--thinks he is, and his grasp of history is weak sauce at best. I think his reputation is built more on being an incisive and contrarian appellate judge than on his academic prowess, which like much legal scholarship, wouldn't really carry water in a subject-matter academic department like philosophy, history, economics, etc.

But without knowing precisely what you're looking for, I think the best place to start is probably with a reader. I'm thinking The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law would seem to be what you're looking for. Most of the books you've got on that list are an attempt at engaging with the ongoing conversation of jurisprudence rather than an introduction to the subject.

If you look at the table of contents on that link, you'll see that there are chapters on most of the important jurisprudential topics, e.g. natural law, legal positivism, the concept of rights, culpability, etc.
posted by valkyryn at 2:25 PM on August 16, 2010 [2 favorites]


This book isn't really about philosophy of law or jurisprudence, rather it's about distributive justice. I don't think it is appropriate in a course on jurisprudence.

For what it's worth, excerpts from it were part of the reading in my law school jurisprudence course.
posted by jedicus at 2:43 PM on August 16, 2010


Best answer: I'd agree with most (though not all) of this.

Of the additional books mentioned, Raz's The Authority of Law and Finnis's Natural Law and Natural Rights should be the next additions to your list, being two of the best relatively-recent accounts of legal positivism and natural law, both being a bit underrepresented on your list in favor of legal realism (whether rightly or wrongly -- realism is not taken nearly as seriously as it should be).

Also, I'd say jayder is spot-on regarding Rawls: it's straightforwardly political, not legal, philosophy. If it were included as core reading in a legal philosophy course, that course would be on a bit of a tangent at that point, IMHO.
posted by astrochimp at 2:52 PM on August 16, 2010


Posner is a rock star, but not as philosophically astute as he--or the legal profession--thinks he is, and his grasp of history is weak sauce at best. I think his reputation is built more on being an incisive and contrarian appellate judge than on his academic prowess, which like much legal scholarship, wouldn't really carry water in a subject-matter academic department like philosophy, history, economics, etc.

I'm guessing you're saying this based on his general economic theory of law, not based on reading How Judges Think. You don't need to be a big fan of Posner's overall theory (which is only a small portion of what the book is about) to see the value of How Judges Think in a course like this. It serves an important role, and I don't know what the substitute would be if you don't assign it. While I'm sure Posner is less philosophically rigorous than actual philosophers of law, he's surely more rigorous in his understanding of how judges actually decide cases than most of those philosophers are.

I agree that Rawls doesn't make sense unless you can find something he wrote that was specifically about law (not "justice" in the Rawlsian sense).
posted by Jaltcoh at 4:32 PM on August 16, 2010


For most academic philosophical subjects, if you're interested in a fairly in-depth introduction, the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good reliable place to start. Here's a link to a list of Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, articles about topics in law.

Another good starting place is to search for syllabi of the course you're wishing you could take: "philosophy of law"+syllabus.
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:51 PM on August 16, 2010


Not a book but a memory. My ex showed his jurisprudence class the film, A Man For All Seasons every year.
posted by Anitanola at 9:25 PM on August 16, 2010


Response by poster: Thanks, all! astrochimp is right about there being a realism focus so far; I'm less familiar with where to look for recent positivism and natural law theory, so those suggestions were helpful.
posted by Picklegnome at 6:58 PM on August 17, 2010


I'm guessing you're saying this based on his general economic theory of law, not based on reading How Judges Think.

Correct. But again, I was under the impression that what we're looking for here is suggestions about how to engage the main philosophical issues in the law. Posner is just not my go-to guy for that, regardless of what I think about his economic theory. You're right in that his explanation of how judges actually do decide cases is pretty awesome, but that's not what I thought was being looked for here.
posted by valkyryn at 6:36 AM on August 18, 2010


Response by poster: For anyone interested, here's what I ended up planning to do this semester:
  • On Laws in General, Jeremy Bentham (Chapters I and XIV)
  • The Province of Jurisprudence, Determined, John Austin (Selections from Lectures I and VI)
  • The Path of the Law, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
  • The Bramble Bush, Karl Llewellyn (Lecture I: What law is about)
  • Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld (Yale Law Journal, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Nov., 1913), pp. 16-59)
  • Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld (Yale Law Journal, Vol. 26, No. 8. (Jun., 1917), pp. 710-770)
  • Pure Theory of Law, Hans Kelsen (Chapters I, II, V, VIII)
  • The Concept of Law, H.L.A. Hart
  • The Morality of Law, Lon L. Fuller (Chapter I; Chapter II Sections 1 and 2; Chapter III Sections 1, 2, and 5)
  • The Authority of Law, Joseph Raz (Chapter I, Chapter II Sections 1, 2, 5, 6)
  • The Authority of the State, Leslie Green (Selections)
  • Law's Empire, Ronald Dworkin (Chapters One, Six, and Seven)
  • Naturalizing Jurisprudence, Brian Leiter

posted by Picklegnome at 8:52 AM on September 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


« Older Help me make an awesome flash demo of our software   |   Grad school advice? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.