In European legal history and the philosophy of law, the jurisprudence of interests is a doctrine of legal positivism [1] [2] of the early 20th century, according to which a written law must be interpreted to reflect the interests it is to promote. The main proponents of the jurisprudence of interests were Philipp Heck, Rudolf Müller-Erzbach, Arthur F. Bentley and Roscoe Pound. [3]
The school of legal positivism passed through the phase of the jurisprudence of interests after the jurisprudence of concepts. In the jurisprudence of interests, one interprets a law essentially in terms of the purposes it is intended to accomplish. This doctrine is characterized by the idea of obedience to law, and subsumption as the resolution of conflicts of interests in the concrete and in the abstract, [4] whereby the interests necessary to life in society, as materialized in that law, should prevail. It is therefore a distinctly teleological school.
Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values; as well as the relationship between law and other fields of study, including economics, ethics, history, sociology, and political philosophy.
In jurisprudence and legal philosophy, legal positivism is the theory that the existence of the law and its content depend on social facts, such as acts of legislation, judicial decisions, and customs, rather than on morality. This contrasts with natural law theory, which holds that law is necessarily connected to morality in such a way that any law that contradicts morality lacks legal validity.
Ronald Myles Dworkin was an American legal philosopher, jurist, and scholar of United States constitutional law. At the time of his death, he was Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University and Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London. Dworkin had taught previously at Yale Law School and the University of Oxford, where he was the Professor of Jurisprudence, successor to philosopher H. L. A. Hart.
Legal formalism is both a descriptive and normative theory of how judges should decide cases. In its descriptive sense, formalists maintain that judges reach their decisions by applying uncontroversial principles to the facts; formalists believe that there is an underlying logic to the many legal principles that may be applied in different cases. These principles, they claim, are straightforward and can be readily discovered by anyone with some legal expertise. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., by contrast, believed that "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience". The formalist era is generally viewed as having existed from the 1870s to the 1920s, but some scholars deny that legal formalism ever existed in practice.
Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart was a British legal philosopher. One of the most influential legal theorists of the 20th century, he was instrumental in the development of the theory of legal positivism, which was popularised by his book, The Concept of Law. Hart's contributions focused on the nature of law, the relationship between law and morality, and the analysis of legal rules and systems, introducing concepts such as the "rule of recognition" that have shaped modern legal thought.
John Austin was an English legal theorist who posthumously influenced British and American law with an analytical approach to jurisprudence and a theory of legal positivism. Austin opposed traditional approaches of "natural law", arguing against any need for connections between law and morality. Human legal systems, he claimed, can and should be studied in an empirical, value-free way.
Hans Kelsen was an Austrian jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He was the principal architect of the 1920 Austrian Constitution, which with amendments is still in operation. Due to the rise of totalitarianism in Austria, Kelsen left for Germany in 1930 but was forced out of his university post after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 because of his Jewish ancestry. That year he left for Geneva and in 1940 he moved to the United States. In 1934, Roscoe Pound lauded Kelsen as "undoubtedly the leading jurist of the time". While in Vienna, Kelsen met Sigmund Freud and his circle, and wrote on social psychology and sociology.
Pure Theory of Law is a book by jurist and legal theorist Hans Kelsen, first published in German in 1934 as Reine Rechtslehre, and in 1960 in a much revised and expanded edition. The latter was translated into English in 1967 as Pure Theory of Law. The title is the name of his general theory of law, Reine Rechtslehre.
The Concept of Law is a 1961 book by the legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart and his most famous work. The Concept of Law presents Hart's theory of legal positivism—the view that laws are rules made by humans and that there is no inherent or necessary connection between law and morality—within the framework of analytic philosophy. Hart sought to provide a theory of descriptive sociology and analytical jurisprudence. The book addresses a number of traditional jurisprudential topics such as the nature of law, whether laws are rules, and the relation between law and morality. Hart answers these by placing law into a social context while at the same time leaving the capability for rigorous analysis of legal terms, which in effect "awakened English jurisprudence from its comfortable slumbers".
The Jaʿfarī school, also known as the Jafarite school, Jaʿfarī fiqh or Ja'fari jurisprudence, is a prominent school of jurisprudence (fiqh) within Twelver and Ismaili Shia Islam, named after the sixth Imam, Ja'far al-Sadiq. In Iran, Jaʽfari jurisprudence is enshrined in the constitution, shaping various aspects of governance, legislation, and judiciary in the country.
Leslie John Green is a Scottish-Canadian legal scholar specialising in jurisprudence. He is Professor of the Philosophy of Law and Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford University, and Professor of Law and Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Queen's University, Kingston. A legal positivist, his research also focuses on political philosophy and constitutional theory.
This is an index of articles in jurisprudence.
Jules Leslie Coleman is a scholar of law and jurisprudence. He was the Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Professor of Jurisprudence and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School until 2012. Coleman is chief academic officer at MYX, a hybrid approach to higher education with campuses starting fall 2021. Before joining MYX, he was the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Planning at New York University.
Jurisprudence of values or jurisprudence of principles is a school of legal philosophy. This school represents, according to some authors, a step in overcoming the contradictions of legal positivism and, for this reason, it has been considered by some authors as a post-positivism school. Jurisprudence of values is referred to in various works all over the world.
The jurisprudence of concepts was the first sub-school of legal positivism, according to which, the written law must reflect concepts, when interpreted. Its main representatives were Ihering, Savigny and Puchta.
Legal Positivism is a book by the Italian jurist Norberto Bobbio about one of the ontological elements of foundations of law — the jusphilosophical school called juspositivism or legal positivism.
In philosophy of law, free scientific research is a precursor of the jurisprudence of values. Free scientific research asserts that, in order to discover the origins of law's principles and rules, the interpreter's studies may have support on various "sciences" such as sociology, economics, linguistics, philosophy and theology, that previous law teachers had not used before.
The law of Mexico is based upon the Constitution of Mexico and follows the civil law tradition.
Scott Jonathan Shapiro is the Charles F. Southmayd Professor of Law and Philosophy at Yale Law School and the Director of Yale's Center for Law and Philosophy and of the Yale CyberSecurity Lab.
Law's Empire is a 1986 text in legal philosophy by Ronald Dworkin, in which the author continues his criticism of the philosophy of legal positivism as promoted by H.L.A. Hart during the middle to late 20th century. The book introduces Dworkin's Judge Hercules as an idealized version of a jurist with extraordinary legal skills who is able to challenge various predominating schools of legal interpretation and legal hermeneutics prominent throughout the 20th century. Judge Hercules is eventually challenged by Judge Hermes, another idealized version of a jurist who is affected by an affinity to respecting historical legal meaning arguments which do not affect Judge Hercules in the same manner. Judge Hermes' theory of legal interpretation is found by Dworkin in the end to be inferior to the approach of Judge Hercules.