Legal Theory Lexicon
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Introduction The Legal Theory Lexicon already includes posts on Deontology and Utilitarianism–representing two important families of ethical theory. This week, the Lexicon provides an introduction to virtue ethics. As always, the Lexicon provides a quick and dirty summary with an eye to law students (especially first-year law students) with an interest in legal theory. Together,…
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Introduction Law students encounter the notion of "common law" very early in their legal education, frequently in an orientation program or on the first day of classes. The standard law school curriculum includes courses in contracts, property, and torts, which are "common law" subjects. And the reading of common law cases as presented in casebooks…
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Introduction In many ways, the "Legal Process" approach to positive and normative legal theory dominated American legal thought in the second half of the twentieth century. There was more than one version of "legal process" theorizing, but this entry in the Legal Theory Lexicon will focus on the idea of "reasoned elaboration" that is associated with…
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The Legal Theory Bookworm recommends Reclaiming the Public by Avihay Dorfman. Here is a description: Reclaiming the Public defines and defends the intrinsic value of “the public” that resides in our public institutions and the officials that run them. The book argues that public institutions do not simply act for us but instead speak and…
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Introduction Normative legal theory is concerned with the ends and justifications for the law as a whole and for particular legal rules. Previous entries in the legal have examined exemplars of the three great traditions in normative theory–consequentialist, deontological, and aretaic (or virtue-centered) perspectives. There are important differences between these three families of theories at…
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Introduction What policy choices are feasible and which options are "pie in the sky," "utopian," or "politically impossible"? What is "necessary" and what is merely "probable"? TheLegal Theory Lexicon includes two entries that deal with aspects of these questons, Legal Theory Lexicon 011: Second Best and Legal Theory Lexicon 062: Path Dependency. In this post, we will investigate the…
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Introduction Almost every law student receives some introduction to normative law and economics in their first year of law school. One of the basic ideas of normative law and economics is that the law should be "efficient." But what does efficiency mean? For economists, "efficiency" is a technical idea–with only a tangential connection to the use…
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Introduction In a prior installment of the Legal Theory Lexicon, we explored the difference between Positive and Normative Legal Theories. Positive legal theory attempts to explain and predict legal behavior, especially the content of legal rules. Normative legal theory makes claims about what those rules should be. This week's post is about an important and…
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Introduction Speech act theory will forever be associated with the great J. L. Austin, the Oxford philosopher whose work in the 1950s had an enormous influence on analytic and Anglophone philosophy. One of Austin's core insights is reflected in the title of his William James lectures, delivered at Harvard in 1955, How to Do Things…
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Introduction One of the most fundamental distinctions in legal theory is that between "positive legal theory" and "normative legal theory." This post provides a very brief introduction to the distinction, aimed at law students (especially first years) with an interest in legal theory. The core idea of the distinction between positive and normative legal theory…