The Field Of Legal Theory Is Continually Being Refined

Born during a period of medieval philosophy, Thomas Hobbes developed a new way of thinking. He perfected his moral and political theories in his controversial book Leviathan, written in 1651. In his introduction, Hobbes describes the state of nature as an organism analogous to a large person (p.42). He advises that people should look into themselves to see the nature of humanity. In his quote, “ The passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them,” Hobbes view of the motivations for moral behavior becomes valid because of his use of examples to support his theories, which in turn, apply to Pojman’s five purposes for morality.

Legal positivism is generally based on the principle that Law and morality is distinct and that the validity of a rule depends more on its sources, while Natural law would be more inclined to favour features of reasonableness and the link between morality and law. There are two predominant groups of legal theorists being, Natural law theorists and Positive law theorists, John Austin and HLA Hart

PHL 612 Philosophy of Law [Calendar Description]: What is law? What makes something a legal norm? Should

The foundations of law have been set in the ideas of natural laws that are given to us. There are many different theories on how our laws of nature have brought us to develop the social contracts and government of today’s society. John Locke and Saint Thomas Aquinas’s views of how social contracts are developed from natural and eternal laws are both well seated in the belief of God given rights, but differ in the politics of the governments.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NATURAL LAW AND LEGAL POSITIVISM This essay is going to discuss and analyse the differences between two basic principles- natural law and legal positivism. According to Hume, there are two realms of human enquiry , one in the field of facts which is concerned with what ‘ is ‘ actually the case and the other in the field of ‘ought’ that is, what ought to be the case1. Those who believe in the principle of natural law are known as naturalists while those who believe in the principle of legal positivism or ‘positive law’ are known as positivists. This is a brief overview of the two principles of

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke both share the common vision of the role of a social contract to maintain order in a state. However, their philosophies were cognizant of a sharp contrasting concept of human nature. This essay aims to compare and contrast the social contracts of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in respect to their definition of natural law. This essay will first analyze the pessimistic Hobbesian approach to the state of nature, the inherit optimistic approach of Locke, and then observe how their definitions directly affect their social contract.

1 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., “The Path of the Law” (1897), in Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory:

Thomas Hobbes was a divisive figure in his day and remains so up to today. Hobbes’s masterpiece, Leviathan, offended his contemporary thinkers with the implications of his view of human nature and his theology. From this pessimistic view of the natural state of man, Hobbes derives a social contract in order to avoid civil war and violence among men. Hobbes views his work as laying out the moral framework for a stable state. In reality, Hobbes was misconstruing a social contract that greatly benefited the state based on a misunderstanding of civil society and the nature and morality of man.

Natural law theorists believe that all law must be morally justified if it can be legitimised as law at all. Legal positivism means the simple contention that it is in no sense a necessary truth that laws reproduce or satisfy certain demands of morality, though in fact they have otherwise done so. (Hart, DATE)

The statement above said by Lord Bingham, from ‘The Rule of Law’ (2007) 66 (1) Cambridge Law Journal 67-85, p. 76. The statement references that the rule of law is not abided by if the state does not provide human protection. This statement can be looked upon, agreed and disagreed with after reviewing the two theories in the rule of law. This will be made possible, as I compare Joseph Raz’s formal theory and Lord Bingham’s Substantive Theory on the rule of law. But firstly, I will address what the Rule of Law is;

In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes attempts to set up the stage for the understanding of the nature of freedom. The account holds much significance, because, what people understand freedom to be matters a great deal to their past and present life. According to Hobbes, freedom implies “the absence of opposition (by opposition I mean external impediments of motion) …” (Hobbes, 2005, P157). However, Hobbes understood this to have had political implications and he talks of liberty (freedom from legal constraints) in contrast with obligations that act as constraints. He suggests that legal constraints do not make it physically impossible to do something, thus, he denies that there is anything more to freedom within a state than this absence of legal restrictions. Having argued this, he emphasizes the duty to obey the laws issued by the sovereign. However, Hobbes’s account has rightly been challenged in a number of ways. Suitably, in this paper, I will confront and critically assess the argument to show how it is ineffective in its attempt to provide an account for the nature of freedom.

Since we were kids and became conscious of our surrounding, our parents and grandparents instilled in us an awareness of what is right and wrong. In other words, it is a trait of all human beings and fosters from our desire to get along with each other to live a harmonious life. Laws are a set of rules and behaviors set by governments that society illustrate on what people can or cannot do. The purpose of this paper is three-fold: it will identify and define what distinguishes law from ethics and what similarities they share. The second is an analysis of examples of where law and ethics either meet or diverge. Third is the role where law and ethics either meet or diverge.

I agree mostly with what Ronald Dworkin is quoted as stating in this article. His opinion of the “moral conception of law’s normativity”(479) is what

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is much concerned about the operations of the mind. Though he believed in the existence of the mind, he held a different view from the empiricists when it comes to the nature and function of the mind. He set out to prove that Hume was wrong by claiming that some truths were certain and were not based on subjective experience alone. Kant argued that the very ingredients which are necessary for even thinking in terms of a causal relationship could not be derived from experience and therefore must exist a priori, or independent of experience. Though he did not deny the importance of sensory data, he thought that the mind must add something to that data before knowledge could be attained; that something was provided by a priori (innate) categories of thought (unity, totality, time, space, cause and effect, reality, quantity, quality, negation, possibility-impossibility, and existence-nonexistence). Kant claimed that the subjective experiences of human has been modified by the pure concepts of the mind and is therefore more meaningful than it would otherwise have been.

And so today, it is needed to rely on socio-legal research for law reform, which serve the various purposes such as it suggests a reform in the existing law, socio-legal research, collect, search and make available the legal principle which are useful for society, it suggests a set of rules where no rules exist at all.