Legal Philosophy Notes – Semester 1 2017

LEGAL PHILOSOPHY Types of philosophers: Pre- Modern: they focused on: a) The common good (community) – rather than the individual b) Their thinking focused on metaphysical/ religious beliefs c) They believed in natural law They include: - Plato - Aristotle - Aquinas - African tradition Modern Philosophies All focus on the individual rather than the community a) Moderns: they tried to replace religious belief with the scientific and rational investigation of law. They reject natural law as metaphysical nonsense that must be replaced with a scientific method They include: - - - Social contractarians = Hobbes and Locke Legal positivism = Bentham, Austin and Hart American Realism b) Late moderns: realized that science alone couldn’t save mankind, they said that values and principles also played a role in the law, but these values and principles must be established rationally = they believe that rational debate is needed about shared values (different from the moderns) They include: - Dworkin - Rawls Post Moderns: have the same idea of crisis, but don’t believe that the crisis can be resolved by looking at universal values = they therefore criticized the idea of a rational legal order and start looking at what the moderns would call irrational modes of thinking