Cambridge's Jurisprudence by Suri Ratnapala - 3rd Edition
| Author : | Suri Ratnapala |
|---|
| Jurisprudence by Suri Ratnapala, Third Edition from Cambridge University Press, is a logically structured, comprehensive and accessible overview of legal theory and philosophy written primarily for undergraduate law students. It works through British legal positivism and the command theories of Bentham and Austin, Hart's concept of law, Kelsen's pure theory, legal realism, natural law from antiquity to Finnis, the law and morality debates, sociological and radical jurisprudence, the economic analysis of law, evolutionary jurisprudence, Hohfeld's fundamental legal conceptions and theories of justice. By locating each tradition within the history of ideas, Ratnapala deepens the reader's understanding of the perennial debates about the nature and function of law and its relation to justice. Paperback, English, ISBN 9781316621172. |
Tags: ACADEMIC LAW BOOKS, Jurisprudence, The Philosophy of Law, An Introduction To The Philosophy Of Law
Jurisprudence by Suri Ratnapala, published by Cambridge University Press, is the Third Edition of one of the most widely adopted single-volume introductions to legal theory and legal philosophy in the common law world. Paperback, English.
Jurisprudence is the paper most law students find hardest to get hold of, because it is taught as a parade of names — Austin, Kelsen, Hart, Fuller, Finnis, Dworkin, Posner — rather than as a set of connected arguments about what law is and why it binds. Professor Ratnapala's approach is the opposite. He locates each tradition inside the history of ideas that produced it, shows what question its authors were actually trying to answer, and then sets the schools against one another so the reader can see where the real disagreements lie. The result is a book that explains legal theory rather than cataloguing it.
Key Features
- Third Edition, Cambridge University Press
- A logically structured, comprehensive and accessible overview of legal theory and philosophy
- Written primarily for undergraduate students, with no prior background in philosophy assumed
- Each tradition placed within the history of ideas that produced it
- Treats law in its social, moral, economic and evolutionary dimensions, not as a closed system of rules
- Clear exposition of the perennial debates on the nature and function of law and its relation to justice
- Paperback · English · ISBN 9781316621172
Coverage
British Legal Positivism. The philosophical roots of positivism and the command theories of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin — law as the command of a sovereign backed by sanction, and the difficulties that account runs into.
Hart's Concept of Law. H.L.A. Hart's reconstruction of positivism: the union of primary and secondary rules, the rule of recognition, the internal point of view, and the open texture of legal language.
Germanic Legal Positivism. Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law — the hierarchy of norms, the Grundnorm, and the attempt to describe law free of politics, morality and sociology.
Legal Realism. The American and Scandinavian realists, the gap between the law in books and the law in action, and the claim that legal rules under-determine what courts actually do.
Natural Law. The natural law tradition from antiquity through the Enlightenment — the Greeks, the Stoics, Aquinas, Grotius, Hobbes and Locke — and the revival of natural law thinking in the twentieth century.
Finnis and Classical Natural Law. John Finnis's account of the basic goods, practical reasonableness and the common good, and its relationship to the classical tradition.
Law and Morality. The separation thesis and the arguments against it — the Hart–Fuller and Hart–Devlin debates, the inner morality of law, and the problem of wicked legal systems.
Sociological Jurisprudence and the Sociology of Law. Ihering, Ehrlich, Weber, Durkheim, Roscoe Pound and the social-interest theory of law.
Radical Jurisprudence. Critical legal studies, feminist jurisprudence, critical race theory and postmodern legal thought — the claim that law is indeterminate and politically constituted.
Economic Analysis of Law. The law and economics movement — efficiency, the Coase theorem, transaction costs, property rights and the economic explanation of common law rules.
Evolutionary Jurisprudence. Spontaneous order, custom and the evolution of legal rules, including the contribution of Hayek and the Austrian tradition.
Fundamental Legal Conceptions. Hohfeld's scheme of jural relations — right, duty, privilege, power, liability, immunity — and its use in analysing legal problems precisely.
Justice. Distributive and corrective justice, Rawls and the theory of justice as fairness, Nozick and entitlement, utilitarian accounts, and the relationship between justice and the rule of law.
Who Should Buy This Book?
- LL.B., B.A. LL.B. and B.B.A. LL.B. students taking Jurisprudence / Legal Theory / Legal Method
- LL.M. students and research scholars in legal philosophy
- Candidates for UGC NET (Law), judicial service and other examinations with a jurisprudence paper
- Students of political science and philosophy taking the philosophy of law
- Teachers of jurisprudence looking for a well-structured prescribed text
- Judges, advocates and policy professionals who want a reliable refresher on legal theory
- University, college and institutional law libraries
Why Choose This Book?
The first reason is structure. Ratnapala does not present the schools in isolation; he builds them in sequence, so that Hart answers Austin, Kelsen answers both, the realists answer the positivists, and the natural lawyers answer everyone. A student who reads the book straight through comes away with an argument rather than a list.
The second is breadth. Few single-volume texts give serious, non-dismissive treatment to the economic analysis of law and to evolutionary jurisprudence alongside the standard positivist and natural-law material. For a reader who wants to understand why common law systems behave as they do, those chapters are worth the book on their own.
The third is readability. This is a Cambridge University Press text written for undergraduates, in plain prose, with the technical vocabulary explained as it is introduced. It can be read without a companion volume — which is exactly what a student facing a jurisprudence paper needs.
