Eric R. Claeys (George Mason University) has posted Analytical Aristotelianism and Analytical Jurisprudence (American Journal of Jurisprudence, forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This essay, part of a symposium on New Natural Law and analytical Thomism, studies how teleological analytical methods have enriched analytical jurisprudence. Those “analytical Aristotelian” methods have inspired two promising arguments in support of the natural law thesis. The legal point of view argument holds that law cannot be analyzed adequately except from the viewpoint of the wise statesman. That argument relies on Aristotle’s strategy of definition with central cases. The artifact argument holds that law has the same basic structure as other artifact-kinds and that its most important feature is its function, its promoting the common good by general and impersonal rule. That argument relies on Aristotle’s four-cause teleological framework.
This essay summarizes the artifact and legal point of view arguments, and it identifies the Aristotelian features in both. The essay also explains the comparative advantages of each argument in analytical natural law theory. The artifact argument makes claims about law’s necessary features, while the legal point of view argument addresses methodological questions about how those features should be picked out. As made to date, however, neither argument addresses another preoccupation of analytical philosophy, explaining how shared concepts shape lay people’s social instincts in practice.
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