Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence is the study and theory of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, also known as jurists or legal theorists, hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems, and of legal institutions. Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and was focused on the first principles of the law of nature, civil law, and the law of nations.

General Jurisprudence

General jurisprudence can be divided into categories both by the type of question scholars seek to answer and by the theories of jurisprudence, or schools of thought, regarding how those questions are best to be answered. Contemporary philosophy of law, which deals with general jurisprudence, addresses problems in two rough groups:

1. Problems internal to law and legal systems as such. 2. Problems of law as a particular social institution as it relates to the larger political and social situation in which it exists.

Answers to these questions come from four primary schools of thought in general jurisprudence:

• Natural law is the idea that there are rational objective limits to the power of legislative rulers.
• Legal positivism, by contrast to natural law, rejects the idea that there are necessary substantive moral constraints on the content of law.
• Legal realism is a third theory of jurisprudence that argues that the real world practice of law is what determines what law is; the law has the force that it does because of what legislators, judges, and executives do with it.
• Critical legal studies is a younger theory of jurisprudence that has developed since the 1970s.

See Also

• Law
• Legal theory
• Legal systems
• Legal institutions

References

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External Links

• Britannica - Jurisprudence

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