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  3. Cambridge Introductions to Philosophy and Law

This introductory series of books provides concise studies of the philosophical foundations of law, of perennial topics in the philosophy of law, and of important and opposing schools of thought. The series is aimed principally at students in philosophy, law, and political science.

  • General Editors: William A. Edmundson, Georgia State University College of Law, Brian Bix, University of Minnesota

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13 results in Cambridge Introductions to Philosophy and Law

Enforcing Morality
  • Steven Wall
  • Published online:
    03 November 2023
    Print publication:
    16 November 2023
  • What parts of morality ought the law to enforce? What considerations justify its enforcement? What is the relationship between the legal and social enforcement of morality? Are there principled moral limits that constrain the enforcement of morality? How should we think about the pragmatic limits to the effective enforcement of morality? These are some of the main questions addressed by Steven Wall in this comprehensive and provocative study of a fundamental debate in jurisprudence and political theory. The book defends the practice of ethical environmentalism: the deliberate effort to improve the ethical character of the social environment of a society by political, legal and other means. The presumptive case for ethical environmentalism is presented and then assessed in light of a range of important considerations, including fair treatment, governmental neutrality, the value of personal liberty, rights to do wrongs, and free expression.

Philosophy and International Law
  • A Critical Introduction
  • David Lefkowitz
  • Published online:
    10 October 2020
    Print publication:
    29 October 2020
  • In Philosophy and International Law, David Lefkowitz examines core questions of legal and political philosophy through critical reflection on contemporary international law. Is international law really law? The answer depends on what makes law. Does the existence of law depend on coercive enforcement? Or institutions such as courts? Or fidelity to the requirements of the rule of law? Or conformity to moral standards? Answers to these questions are essential for determining the truth or falsity of international legal skepticism, and understanding why it matters. Is international law morally defensible? This book makes a start to answering that question by engaging with recent debates on the nature and grounds of human rights, the moral justifiability of the law of war, the concept of a crime against humanity, the moral basis of universal jurisdiction, the propriety of international law governing secession, and the justice of international trade law.

The Legal Relation
  • Legal Theory after Legal Positivism
  • Alexander Somek
  • Published online:
    29 September 2017
    Print publication:
    12 October 2017
  • What is law? The usual answer is that the law is a system of norms. But this answer gives us at best half of the story. The law is a way of relating to one another. We do not do this as lovers or friends and not as people who are interested in obtaining guidance from moral insight. In a legal context, we are cast as 'character masks' (Marx), for example, as 'buyer' and 'seller' or 'landlord' and 'tenant'. We expect to have our claims respected simply because the law has given us rights. We do not want to give any other reason for our behavior than the fact that we have a legal right. Backing rights up with coercive threats indicates that we are willing to accept legal obligations unwillingly. This book offers a conceptual reconstruction of the legal relation on the basis of a critique of legal positivism.

Deontic Logic and Legal Systems
  • Pablo E. Navarro, Jorge L. Rodríguez
  • Published online:
    05 October 2014
    Print publication:
    29 September 2014
  • A considerable number of books and papers have analyzed normative concepts using new techniques developed by logicians; however, few have bridged the gap between the English legal culture and the Continental (i.e. European and Latin American) tradition in legal philosophy. This book addresses this issue by offering an introductory study on the many possibilities that logical analysis offers the study of legal systems. The volume is divided into two sections: the first covers the basic aspects of classical and deontic logic and its connections, advancing an explanation of the most important topics of the discipline by comparing different systems of deontic logic and exploring some of the most important paradoxes in its domain. The second section deals with the role of logic in the analysis of legal systems by discussing in what sense deontic logic and the logic of norm-propositions are useful tools for a proper understanding of the systematic structure of law.

What Makes Law
  • An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law
  • Liam Murphy
  • Published online:
    05 July 2014
    Print publication:
    16 June 2014
  • This book offers an advanced introduction to central questions in legal philosophy. What factors determine the content of the law in force? What makes a normative system a legal system? How does law beyond the state differ from domestic law? What kind of moral force does law have? The most important existing views are introduced, but the aim is not to survey the existing literature. Rather, this book introduces the subject by stepping back from the fray to sketch the big picture, to show just what is at stake in these old debates. Legal philosophy has become somewhat arid and inward looking. In part this is because the disagreement between the main camps on the important questions is apparently intractable. The main aim of the book is to suggest both a diagnosis and a proper practical response to this situation of intractable disagreement about questions that do matter.

Contract Law
  • Rules, Theory, and Context
  • Brian H. Bix
  • Published online:
    05 November 2012
    Print publication:
    15 October 2012
  • To gain a deep understanding of contract law, one needs to master not only the rules and principles of the field, but also its underlying theory and justification, and its long and intricate history. This book offers an accessible introduction to all aspects of American contract law, useful to both first-year law students and advanced contract scholars. The book is grounded on up-to-date scholarship and contains detailed references to cases, statutes, Restatements and international legal principles. The book takes the reader from contract formation through interpretation and remedies, considering both the practical and theoretical aspects throughout. Each chapter also includes helpful lists of suggested further reading.

Normative Jurisprudence
  • An Introduction
  • Robin West
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    22 August 2011
  • Normative Jurisprudence aims to reinvigorate normative legal scholarship that both criticizes positive law and suggests reforms for it, on the basis of stated moral values and legalistic ideals. It looks sequentially and in detail at the three major traditions in jurisprudence – natural law, legal positivism and critical legal studies – that have in the past provided philosophical foundations for just such normative scholarship. Over the last fifty years or so, all of these traditions, although for different reasons, have taken a number of different turns – toward empirical analysis, conceptual analysis or Foucaultian critique – and away from straightforward normative criticism. As a result, normative legal scholarship – scholarship that is aimed at criticism and reform – is now lacking a foundation in jurisprudential thought. The book criticizes those developments and suggests a return, albeit with different and in many ways larger challenges, to this traditional understanding of the purpose of legal scholarship.

Demystifying Legal Reasoning
  • Larry Alexander, Emily Sherwin
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    16 June 2008
  • Demystifying Legal Reasoning defends the proposition that there are no special forms of reasoning peculiar to law. Legal decision makers engage in the same modes of reasoning that all actors use in deciding what to do: open-ended moral reasoning, empirical reasoning, and deduction from authoritative rules. This book addresses common law reasoning when prior judicial decisions determine the law, and interpretation of texts. In both areas, the popular view that legal decision makers practise special forms of reasoning is false.

Crime and Culpability
  • A Theory of Criminal Law
  • Larry Alexander, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan
  • With Stephen J. Morse
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    16 March 2009
  • This book presents a comprehensive overview of what the criminal law would look like if organised around the principle that those who deserve punishment should receive punishment commensurate with, but no greater than, that which they deserve. Larry Alexander and Kimberly Kessler Ferzan argue that desert is a function of the actor's culpability, and that culpability is a function of the risks of harm to protected interests that the actor believes he is imposing and his reasons for acting in the face of those risks. The authors deny that resultant harms, as well as unperceived risks, affect the actor's desert. They thus reject punishment for inadvertent negligence as well as for intentions or preparatory acts that are not risky. Alexander and Ferzan discuss the reasons for imposing risks that negate or mitigate culpability, the individuation of crimes, and omissions.

An Introduction to Rights
  • 2nd edition
  • William A. Edmundson
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    23 January 2012
  • An Introduction to Rights is a readable and accessible introduction to the history, logic, moral implications and political tendencies of the idea of rights. It is organized chronologically and discusses important historical events such as the French and American Revolutions. It treats a range of historical figures, including Grotius, Paley, Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, Burke, Godwin, Douglass, Mill and Hohfeld and relates the concept of rights to contemporary debates such as consequentialism versus contractualism. This thoroughly updated second edition includes a new preface and expands the discussion of the surprising role that slavery has played in the history of rights. It includes new material on egalitarianism, distributive justice and what the demand for equal rights means.

An Introduction to Property Theory
  • Gregory S. Alexander, Eduardo M. Peñalver
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    09 April 2012
  • This book surveys the leading modern theories of property - Lockean, libertarian, utilitarian/law-and-economics, personhood, Kantian and human flourishing - and then applies those theories to concrete contexts in which property issues have been especially controversial. These include redistribution, the right to exclude, regulatory takings, eminent domain and intellectual property. The book highlights the Aristotelian human flourishing theory of property, providing the most comprehensive and accessible introduction to that theory to date. The book's goal is neither to cover every conceivable theory nor to discuss every possible facet of the theories covered. Instead, it aims to make the major property theories comprehensible to beginners, without sacrificing accuracy or sophistication. The book will be of particular interest to students seeking an accessible introduction to contemporary theories of property, but even specialists will benefit from the book's lucid descriptions of contemporary debates.

An Introduction to Rights
  • William A. Edmundson
  • Published online:
    08 January 2010
    Print publication:
    08 March 2004
  • Rights come in various types - human, moral, civil, political and legal - and claims about who has a right, and to what, are often contested. What are rights? Are they timeless and universal, or merely conventional? How are they related to other morally significant values, such as well-being, autonomy, and community? Can animals have rights? Or fetuses? Do we have a right to do as we please so long as we do not harm others? This is the only accessible and readable introduction to the history, logic, moral implications, and political tendencies of the idea of rights. It is organized chronologically and discusses important events, such as the French Revolution. As an undergraduate text it is well-suited to introductions to political philosophy, moral philosophy, and ethics. It could also be used in courses on political theory in departments of political science and government, and in courses on legal theory in law schools.

Objectivity and the Rule of Law
  • Matthew Kramer
  • Published online:
    24 November 2009
    Print publication:
    11 June 2007
  • What is objectivity? What is the rule of law? Are the operations of legal systems objective? If so, in what ways and to what degrees are they objective? Does anything of importance depend on the objectivity of law? These are some of the principal questions addressed by Matthew H. Kramer in this lucid and wide-ranging study that introduces readers to vital areas of philosophical enquiry. As Kramer shows, objectivity and the rule of law are complicated phenomena, each comprising a number of distinct though overlapping dimensions. Although the connections between objectivity and the rule of law are intimate, they are also densely multi-faceted.