On The History Of The Idea Of Law

by Shirley Robin Letwin

• ISBN13: 9780521854238
• ISBN10: 0521854237
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-11-14
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

On the History of the Idea of Law is the first book ever to trace the development of the philosophical theory of law from its first appearance in Plato's writings to today. Professor Letwin finds important and positive insights and tensions in the theories of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Hobbes. She finds confusions and serious errors introduced by Cicero, Aquinas, Bentham, and Marx. She harnesses the insights of H. L. A. Hart and especially Michael Oakeshott to mount a devastating attack on the late twentieth-century theories of Ronald Dworkin, the Critical Legal Studies movement, and feminist jurisprudence. In all of this, Professor Letwin finds the rule of law to be the key to modern liberty and the standard of justice. This is the final work of the distinguished historian and theorist Shirley Robin Letwin, a major figure in the revival of Conservatine thought and doctrine from 1960 onwards, who died in 1993.

Table of Contents

Editor's preface	vii
Introduction: The idea of law	1	(8)
Part I Law anchored to a cosmic order
Plato	9	(12)
Aristotle	21	(21)
Cicero	42	(17)
Part II The Christian revision
St. Augustine	59	(10)
St. Thomas Aquinas	69	(22)
Part III The modern quest
Thomas Hobbes	91	(17)
John Locke	108	(27)
Immanuel Kant	135	(18)
Jeremy Bentham	153	(32)
Part IV The significance of rules
From historical jurisprudence to Realism: Savigny, Jhering, Duguit, Holmes, Gray, Frank	185	(15)
The defense of rules: Edward Levi, Hans Kelsen, H. L. A. Hart	200	(21)
Part V The idea of law repudiated
Marxist theories	221	(26)
Political jurisprudence I: From Realism to feminist jurisprudence	247	(29)
Political jurisprudence II: Ronald Dworkin	276	(31)
Part VI New foundations
A skeptical jurisprudence: Michael Oakeshott	307	(19)
Postscript: Morality, individualism, and law	326	(21)
Index	347