Educating Oneself in Public : Critical Essays in Jurisprudence

An examination of the main ideas that have dominated Anglo-American legal philosophy since the Second World War. The author probes major themes such as: whether there can be right answers to all disputed law cases; how laws and other rules impact on the practical rationality of actors subject to their authority; and more.

The eleven essays in Educating Oneself in Public: Critical Essays in Jurisprudence constitute an education in the Anglo-American jurisprudence of the second half of the twentieth century. The book examines both the thought of major figures such as H. L. A. Hart, Joseph Raz, Ronald Dworkin, Lon Fuller, and Richard Rorty, and the general themes of major movements such as legal realism, post-modernism, and pragmatism. Despite this focus on the thoughts of others the book is not a survey but is a critical probing of particular ideas often attributed to such figures. Detailed depth of understanding is sought about: Hart''s conception of a `general jurisprudence'' that describes law in general; Dworkin''s conception of an `internal jurisprudence'' that interprets the concept of law of our legal culture; Fuller''s ideal of a `functional jurisprudence'' that seeks the essence of law in the values it serves; the place of rules in legal and moral reasoning; Raz''s idea that laws give `exclusionary reasons'' to legal actors subject to such laws; how judges should reason, according to the legal realists; whether there are right answers to all disputed law cases; whether behind the obvious law of legal rules there can exist an unobvious law of legal principles; Finnis''s conception of the common good as the function law uniquely serves; in what sense law practice and legal theory are interpretive activities; whether all knowledge, or some discrete realm of knowledge, is peculiarly interpretive in character. Michael Moore''s views on each of these topics are detailed and original, even if the springboards for each discussion are the writings of those who introduced such topics into modern discussions. The introductory chapter includes responses by many of the figures examined in the other essays, together with the author''s rejoinders.