On the History of the Idea of Law

Shirley Robin Letwin0521854237, 9780521854238, 9780511140730

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. Shirley Robin 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, Dr. Letwin finds the rule of law to be the key to modern liberty and the standard of justice.

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Table of contents :
Cover……Page 1
Half-title……Page 3
Title……Page 5
Copyright……Page 6
Contents……Page 7
Editor’s preface……Page 9
Introduction: The idea of law……Page 13
Part I: Law anchored to a cosmic order……Page 19
1 Plato……Page 21
2 Aristotle……Page 33
3 Cicero……Page 54
Part II: The Christian revision……Page 69
4 St. Augustine……Page 71
5 St. Thomas Aquinas……Page 81
Part III: The modern quest……Page 101
6 Thomas Hobbes……Page 103
7 John Locke……Page 120
8 Immanuel Kant……Page 147
I……Page 165
II……Page 169
III……Page 176
IV……Page 180
VI……Page 186
Part IV: The significance of rules……Page 195
Friedrich Karl von Savigny……Page 197
Rudolf von Jhering……Page 200
The Realists……Page 204
Edward H. Levi……Page 212
Hans Kelsen……Page 216
H. L. A. Hart……Page 223
Part V: The idea of law repudiated……Page 231
12 Marxist theories……Page 233
13 Political jurisprudence I: From Realism to feminist jurisprudence……Page 259
Critical Legal Studies (CLS)……Page 266
Feminist legal theory……Page 276
14 Political jurisprudence II: Ronald Dworkin……Page 288
Part VI: New foundations……Page 317
15 A skeptical jurisprudence: Michael Oakeshott……Page 319
I……Page 338
II……Page 343
III……Page 346
IV……Page 351
V……Page 353
Index……Page 359