Jurisprudence and Political Theory
Students taking Jurisprudence and Political Theory have the opportunity to participate in wide-ranging but analytically precise discussions of the presuppositions and methods of legal, political and therefore also, to some extent, moral philosophy, and of related social theories in their bearing on the institutions, norms and methods of legal systems. The syllabus covers the concepts of law, legal system, legal right and legal obligation; the nature of adjudication and judicial discretion; the range and limits of law as a means of social control; the individual’s moral duty to obey the law; the individual’s moral rights against his or her government; and the justification of political (including judicial) authority. Much of, for example, Dworkin’s Law’s Empire, Raz’s The Morality of Freedom, and Finnis’s Aquinas was earlier presented and discussed in this course’s seminars, which provide a good context for critical testing of advanced work-in-progress. The seminars do not necessarily cover all of the topics mentioned in the syllabus, and of those covered some may be covered in much greater depth than others. Nevertheless the syllabus gives a good general indication of the field to which the seminars and the eventual list of examination essay topics relate.
The course is a philosophy course, and in that sense is a specialist rathar than a generalist pursuit. Through it students may expect to develop some of the skills and dispositions of professional philosophers. An acquaintance with some undergraduate-level jurisprudence is presupposed; those who enter on this course without having formally studied jurisprudence should prepare themselves by a careful reading of at least some of the following (or comparable) works: Hart, The Concept of Law, Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously or Law’s Empire, Raz, The Authority of Law, or Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights. But this list should not lead anyone to think that, in the course itself, the topics to be discussed are narrowly ‘jurisprudential’ or that the authors to be read are narrowly ‘Oxford’. Students with an Oxford Jurisprudence background, and others, could well prepare for the course by careful reading of (for example) Rawls, A Theory of Justice or Political Liberalism, Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, Raz, The Morality of Freedom, Nagel, Equality and Partiality, Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality, or Walzer, Spheres of Justice.