Natural Law in Jurisprudence and Politics
2007; Oxford University Press; Volume: 27; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/ojls/gqm019
ISSN1464-3820
Autores Tópico(s)Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies
ResumoThe central text of contemporary natural law theory remains John Finnis's Natural Law and Natural Rights.1 In that respect, it is a field in need of reinvigoration. The comparison with legal positivism, natural law theory's modern counterpoint, is instructive. Although the paradigmatic positivist text is still H. L. A. Hart's The Concept of Law,2 Hart's theory has largely been superseded in current debates within positivism, most notably by the (arguably more philosophically sophisticated) writings of his erstwhile student, Joseph Raz. The current vibrancy of the positivist tradition owes much to this changing of the guard. Mark Murphy's recent book, Natural Law in Jurisprudence and Politics, provides perhaps the best hope yet for a similar development within natural law theory. Murphy's writing is clear, elegant and precise; in fewer than 200 pages, he covers the central questions confronting the natural law view, including the definition...
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