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Jurisprudence — University of Oxford notes | caselaw

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Jurisprudence

Legal theory — positivism, natural law, Dworkin, critical legal studies, and theories of adjudication.

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What is law? — Hart and positivism

Hart's legal positivism, the separation thesis, primary and secondary rules, and the rule of recognition

Natural law — Aquinas, Finnis, Fuller

Classical and modern natural law: moral foundations, defective law, and procedural legality

Dworkin and interpretivism

How Dworkin's interpretivism rejects legal positivism and reconceives law as a practice of constructive interpretation grounded in principles, integrity, and objective moral reasoning.

Legal reasoning and judicial discretion

Syllogism, interpretation, and the limits of discretion from formalism to critical realism

Raz's service conception, exclusionary reasons, legal positivism, and the interest theory of rights

Law and morality — the Hart–Devlin debate

The Hart–Devlin debate on the enforcement of morality

Feminist and critical legal theory

How feminist and critical scholars uncover power, hierarchy, and contingency beneath law's neutral veneer.

Punishment and theories of justice

Theories of punishment, distributive and corrective justice, and the justification of state coercion in liberal democracies

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