Legal methods unit

Philosophical Issues, 2001

Baudouin Dupret, Positive Law from the Muslim World: Jurisprudence, History, Practices (Cambridge University Press), 2021

This chapter addresses the question of the concept of law and its analytical relevance. By mixing conceptual clarification and semantic probes, and by shifting its scrutiny towards the Western legal experience, it seeks to underscore the problematic nature of characterizing law as a universal concept. On the contrary, we intend to show that law, in the sense by which it is globally understood today, is the outcome of a contingent experience whose extension to other historical and cultural contexts has been achieved at a huge price: heuristic weakness, analytical vacuity, grammatical incoherence, pluralist dogmatism. We conduct this exploration of the concept of law in three stages. First, we examine works dealing with "legal pluralism" and "legalism" to identify the reasons why the term 'law', its conceptual extension, and the attribution of its predicative quality are problematic and badly reflect the gap that can exist between a 'legalistic way of thinking' about the world and the existence of law in its contemporary meaning. Second, we specifically address works dealing with 'Islamic law' and law in Muslim contexts to try to see what law can be at the margin, at what Herbert Hart nicely called its fringe of penumbra, but also what people make it into, often abusively. Third, we seek to outline the contours of a conceptual inquiry, delimiting its relevance, specifying its limits, taking advantage of its analytical razor, clearing the mist, opening the domain of grammar. We thus pave the way for a later examination of the historical ontology of the concept of law and for the ethnography of its practices. Uses and Abuses of the Concept of Law Let us start with concepts of law presented as alternatives to positivism. From the critique of several collections, we will review the notions of 'folk law', 'legal pluralism', and 'legalism', with the aim of tackling the conceptual issues they raise and the analytical dilution resulting from them. It will allow us to stress the contingency of the concept of law and the stalemate into which its extensive meanings lead us. Folk Law and Legal Pluralism Folk Law: Essays in the Theory and Practice of Lex Non Scripta is a kind of manifesto of the current of folk law and legal pluralism (Dundes Renteln & Dundes, 1994). It is emblematic of the stalemate into which the search for a universal concept of law leads us. While recognizing, as Gluckman does, that the term 'law' and its derivatives have various meanings (Gluckman, 1965: 227), most contributions are based on an implicit concept that allows us to describe the many historical and geographical experiences as instances of the same concept. In the same way, many contributions make the correct observation that the study of the constitutive elements of so-called 'primitive law' starts from the characteristic features of modern law and doctrine (Josselin de Jong, 1994: 111); or that the idea that the 'Common Law' is a set of rules constituting a system is closely associated with legal positivism and derives from the concept of any law in terms of the model of legislated law (Simpson, 1994: 122); or that the concept of law held by an English lawyer today is largely influenced by Austinian theory and its later positivist versions, like Kelsen's or Hart's, all of them tending to think of law as a system of rules emanating from a focal point at the top of a pyramidal structure (Hag Ali, 1994: 36). However, they do not draw the conclusions of this assessment, that is, that the very idea of a 'law' characterized as primitive, customary,

NLIU LAW REVIEW, 2020

This paper poses the question whether jurisprudence has a method that it can call its own. In search of answers, the paper analyses methodological elements in well known theories starting with Austin. It traces the evolution of legal theory from the methodology of Austin to the more advanced methods of Hart and Raz. Hart's view that jurisprudence can be descriptive is then contrasted with the normative approaches of Finnis and Dworkin. In the last section of Part I, the paper discusses Chattrapati Singh's theory of law drawing from his book Law from Anarchy to Utopia. In Part II, the paper discusses three aspects of methodology. The paper briefly deals with the major points of tension between various methodological claims in the theories discussed in Part I. The paper goes on to suggest that rather than construct grand theories of law attempting to explain all that is associated with law, we might be better off attempting to uncover the mysteries of law, little by little. Second, the paper questions the claim that a theory of law if successful must be true of all legal systems. The paper argues that the claims that a theory makes should ordinarily be thought of as valid only for the normative systems that it has considered. Last, the paper comments on the extent to which empirical inputs must be considered necessary in building a theory of law. It is suggested that imposing a condition that theories must be empirically justified does not necessarily mean theorising has to be preceded by some act of scientific data gathering.

International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding

Legal positivism is influenced by natural law from Ancient Greece, natural law comes from God to regulate human life. Humans were created by reason by God to make rules, John Austin stated that to make a rule sourced from orders or policies in the field of law by the king or parliament as the highest authority. This influenced the thinking of Hans Klesen with a pure legal theory that complies with hierarchical rules and sanctions, Hart's legal positivism explains that law comes from morals that regulate one's behavior. This paper is in the form of legal research in literature studies in the form of books and journals that discuss positivism legal policy, which is legal research, then analyzed using the John Austin doctrine. The advantage of the influence of natural law on legal positivism according to Austin is that it divides the law into two forms, namely the law from God for humans (the divine law), the law created by God for His creatures. Laws are compiled and made by h...

2010

Ratio Juris, 2006

In this paper, I make an attempt to look for a thin and general concept of law that, as far as possible, should be neutral to the more substantial views of legal moralism and legal positivism, so that it is acceptable from both points of view. With this aim in view, I shall begin with a few remarks on concept formation and name a list of necessary requirements on an appropriate concept of law. On this basis, I intend to discuss a number of contemporary legal theories in view to their respective interpretations of the concept of law. Finally, I want to propose a definition of law that not only satisfies the requirements of the concept of law, but is also general enough to be compatible with both camps of legal thinking.