The tapestry of the law : Scotland, legal culture, and legal theory

Although its concern is jurisprudence, The Tapestry of the Law is intended to offer neither an original theory of or about law nor an account of other people's theories in textbook form. It is, rather, an attempt to approach the subject without following either of these conventions. The reasons are as follows. Those engaged in legal theory are prone to assert that one cannot properly understand the law unless one takes a jurisprudential approach - preferably their own - to it. Equally, those engaged in exposition of the law may counter that legal theory fails to pay adequate attention to actual law. There is at least some truth in these claims. Analyses, courses and textbooks on both sides do often seem to be produced without reference to the other. Yet such isolation is probably more apparent than real. Most, if not all, so-called "black letter" lawyers do operate on the basis of certain jurisprudential understandings, even if these are not articulated ones. In the frequently quoted words ofF C S Northrop: There are lawyers, judges and even law professors who tell us they have no legal philosophy.

The Tapestry of the Law brings together a study of a particular legal system - that of Scotland - with a number of (mainly contemporary) theories of or about law. Rather than endorsing any one legal theory, it ends with some tentative conclusions about legal theory itself. It is written for all those interested in the law, whether in the academic context, as practitioners of law or politics, or from the lay point of view, but primarily with students in mind. At this level, chapters II to VI provide an information base for those embarking on courses in comparative law or politics, whilst the whole, and especially the later chapters, will offer most to those who already have some grounding in the issues with which jurisprudence is concerned.

Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Some Puzzles about the Nature of Law....Pages 1-16 Connecting Law and Society....Pages 17-37 A Constitutional Culture....Pages 39-59 The Style of Scots Law....Pages 61-81 The Style of Scots Law Continued....Pages 83-100 And so to Ideology....Pages 101-122 Matters of Interpretation....Pages 123-142 Law in Whose Terms?....Pages 143-162 And What Kind of System?....Pages 163-181 The Language of the Law....Pages 183-202 Some Different Critiques....Pages 203-219 The Role of Reason....Pages 221-240 Weaving the Threads....Pages 241-250 Back Matter....Pages 251-258