This book aims at providing critical knowledge of the Anglo-American philosophy of law to high level law students who are interested in it. This book contains almost everything about the Anglo-American philosophy of law. This book is composed of two ...
This book aims at providing critical knowledge of the Anglo-American philosophy of law to high level law students who are interested in it. This book contains almost everything about the Anglo-American philosophy of law. This book is composed of two parts: main theorists and topics. The first part includes Hart, Dworkin, Fuller, Kelsen, Finnis, the American legal realism, and the second includes what is law, natural law and legal positivism, justice, legal interpretation, rights, moral obligation to obey the law, legal enforcement of morality, civil disobedience, rule of law. Also, this book includes two translated legal articles as supplementary material. One is "The Path of the Law" by Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes Jr., and "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers" by Lon L. Fuller. Each of them are of the utmost importance to the study of legal philosophy. It is said that the former is the most influential to the American jurisprudence, and the latter is the most popular article.
As a matter of the course, the Anglo-American philosophy of law has been in the forefront of legal philosophies. I think no one will not deny such a claim. In my country, however, it has not been so treated as it should be. The reason is, I think, that our legal studies have been influenced by the German counterparts. In the first half of the 20th century, Germany was the motherland of philosophy of law, but nowadays such a claim can not be maintained. The tendency was changed. Since 2000, two core books of the Anglo-American philosophy of law have been translated into our language. I think it reflects the change of the tendency in the world of the scholarship of legal philosophy. They are "The Concept of Law" by H. L. A. Hart and "Law's Empire" by Ronald Dworkin which are composed of two big battle camps. I expect this book to be a shortcut to the study of the Anglo-American legal philosophy to our readers, and to be a stepping stone for our legal philosophy.