LAWS6632 · Law

Jurisprudence

Boston College Law School

This course introduces students to select legal theories and schools of jurisprudence. It invites them to reflect on the deeper forces that shape legal doctrine and to master a theoretical vocabulary that will strengthen their ability to interpret law and to argue about its meaning. The course asks questions such as: What is the relation between law and politics? How does law relate to morality? When is law legitimate or just? What are the sources of law's authority? Students will engage with the traditions of legal thought that understand law as primarily a matter of reason, will, morality, politics, history, power, culture, ideology, social order, emotion, language or professional practice. Approaching jurisprudence from this perspective helps to contextualize the map of modern legal theory (formalism, American legal realism, legal positivism, natural law, critical legal studies, among others). Readings will include: Savigny, von Ihering, Austin, Bentham, Holmes, Hohfeld, Pound, Fuller, Hart, Kelsen, Raz, Dworkin, Finnis, Kennedy, MacKinnon, Waldron, Crenshaw. For their final grade, students will have over one month to answer three questions from a list of over twenty questions that the instructor will circulate well before the end of the semester. No background in philosophy is expected or necessary. No other pre-requisites. The course meets the Perspectives requirement.