Course Description

This course is an introduction to the philosophy of law - that is, problems generated by philosophical reflection on the law. Rather than trying to describe what (if anything) these problems have in common, it is better to simply provide some examples that will be discussed in class:

1) Is there a duty to obey the law?

2) The law often (perhaps always) claims authority over citizens. Indeed authority may be a condition for the existence of law. But isn't the very idea of authority incompatible with moral autonomy, that is, with the idea that one should do what one thinks is, all things considered, morally right -- and not simply act because someone tells one what to do? Isn't authority always illegitimate? And if it is, doesn't that mean law cannot exist?

3) Does every legal system have a sovereign, that is, a person (or group of people) who is the ultimate lawmaker? If so, who is the sovereign in the American legal system -- the people of the United States? the original ratifiers of the Constitution? the judges who interpret the Constitution?

4) Can sovereignty be divided? Is sovereignty divided (e.g. between the federal government and the states) in the American legal system?

5) Must the sovereign always be unconstrained by the law because he (or she or it) is the ultimate source of all law? Is there such a legally unlimited sovereign within the American legal system?

6) Is international law really law? Can international law bind the United States or does such law bind only to the extent that American law recognizes it?

7) Is the law simply whatever a court says it is?

8) What is law? Is it reducible to sociological facts (e.g. facts about relationships of power)? Is it reducible to morality? Is it something entirely different, neither sociological nor moral?

Classics in the field, including John Austin, H.L.A. Hart, Hans Kelsen, Ronald Dworkin and the American Legal Realists, will be discussed, as will arguments by some more recent writers, including Jules Coleman, Jeremy Waldron and David Brink.

The reading for this course consists of a book manuscript that I have been in the process of rewriting for the past few years. The book is an introduction to the philosophy of law and consists of my own reflections on the fundamental problems in the field, with rather long passages from other authors.