From Positivism to Idealism: A Study of the Moral Dimensions of Legality (Applied Legal Philosophy)

Examining the emergence and development of legal positivism as a distinctive and particularly powerful tradition in legal thought, this book places particular emphasis on its relationship to traditional understandings of the common law and on forms of idealism. The focus throughout is on the consequences positivism holds for the idea of the rule of law and of law's role in maintaining (and perhaps creating) conditions of stable social order. The book examines the shifts in thinking about the rule of law and the wider significance of law, brought about by changing conceptions of the nature of law: from an understanding of law in which the primary focus is on rights, to an articulation of the legal order as a body of deliberately posited rules and, finally, to an understanding of law as a corpus of systematic rules and principles, underpinned by an abiding concern with individual rights. Contents......Page 6 Series Editor’s Preface......Page 8 Preface......Page 10 1 Reflection on Law’s Nature......Page 12 Jurisprudence and the Moral Life......Page 18 The Importance of a Historical Perspective......Page 25 2 Reason, Will and Law......Page 30 Morality, History and the Will......Page 31 Natural Law and Protestant Autonomy......Page 37 Historicism and Geist......Page 45 3 Doctrinal Scholarship and the Science of Right......Page 50 Rights and Forms of Justice......Page 51 Natural Right and Political Authority......Page 59 Natural Right, Juridical Reason and Legal Doctrine......Page 68 4 Legal Positivism, Doctrinal Science and Statist Conceptions of Law......Page 76 Doctrinal Science and Posited Rules......Page 77 Political Stability and ‘Top-Down’ Authority......Page 80 Posited Rules and Formal Authority......Page 85 Positivism and Statism......Page 90 Statism and its Limits......Page 94 Statist Impulses and Moral Visions......Page 99 5 The Changing Face of Positivism: From Hobbes to Hart......Page 102 Legal Science in the Century after Hobbes......Page 103 The Nature of Positivistic Legal Science......Page 108 Social Order and the Significance of ‘Rules’......Page 111 The Limits of Legal Positivism......Page 119 Validity and Recognition......Page 122 Recognition and its Limits......Page 127 Recognition and Construction......Page 129 From Positivism to Idealism......Page 135 7 Beyond Positivism and Idealism......Page 138 The Character of Legal Reflection......Page 141 Legal Reason......Page 150 The Withering of Ideals......Page 155 8 Liberal Politics and Private Law......Page 158 Rights, Interests and Legal Doctrine......Page 159 Private Law, Powers and the Will......Page 163 Individualism and Autonomy......Page 171 9 The Moral Nature of Law......Page 174 Morality and Identity......Page 175 Constructing the Ideal......Page 183 Legality, Theory and Geist......Page 188 D......Page 192 I......Page 193 L......Page 194 N......Page 195 R......Page 196 U......Page 197 W......Page 198

Illuminating the idea of legality by a consideration of its moral nature, this book explores the emergence and development of two rival traditions of legal thought (those of 'positivism' and 'idealism') which together define the structure of modern juridical thought. In doing so, it consciously departs from many of the tendencies and working assumptions that define modern legal philosophy. The book examines the shifts in thinking about the rule of law and the wider significance of law, brought about by changing conceptions of the nature of law: from an understanding of law in which the primary focus is on rights, to an articulation of the legal order as a body of deliberately posited rules, and finally to the present understanding of law as a systematic body of rules and principles underpinned by an abiding concern with individual rights. By exposing the historical and metaphysical underpinnings of these theoretical traditions, the book imparts an idea of their limitations and moves beyond the understandings offered within them of the nature of legality.

"This book seeks to illuminate the idea of legality by a consideration of its moral nature. In doing so, it consciously departs from many of the tendencies and working assumptions that define modern legal philosophy."--Jacket