Jurisprudence

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Description
The study of jurisprudence is an opportunity for lawyers to bring theory and life into focus, it concerns human thought in relation to society. It is always the hope of teachers of law to encourage pupils to lealrn how to think reather than just what to know, and Jurisprudence is suited to this end because it can set law wider context and proceed by way of stimulation and not simply by instruction. This book does not evolve or demonstrate a particular theory, but seeks instead to provide a way of thinking about law. It tries also to furnish material for the evolution of ideas and the understanding of other theorioes and in this respect swerves as a prelude to these contgributions by providing an informed and critical background to them. A guarantee of independence and originality in thought is breadth of view, a sense of perspective and appreciation of what people have said and are saying. No one theory provides the best or exclusive aveue to the 'truth', and those who choose to tread one path rather than another are not for that reaon misguided. Jurisprudence i a field traversed by many paths, none being superior to aother, since much depends on whither one wishes to go.
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Contents
Part I : Introduction
1.    Introduction
2.    Legal material
3.    Rules, laws and legal system
Part II : Aspects of justice
4.    Distributive justice
5.    The problem of power
6.    Control of liberty
7.    Justice in deciding disputes: precedent
8.    Statutory interpretation
9.    Custom
10.  Values
11.  Obligation and duty
12.  Persons
13.  Possession
14.  Ownership
15.  Justice in adapting to change
Part III : Legal Theory
16.  Positivism : British theory
17.  The pure theory
18.  Historical and anthropological approaches
19.  Economic approach
20.  Sociological approaches
21.  Modern realism
22.  Natural law
Index
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Author details
RWM Dias, MA LLB (Contab.) of the Inner Temple, Barrister Fellow of Magdalene College University of Cambridge
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