Description
Book SynopsisIn legal jurisprudence, the phenomenon of hard cases presents itself as a dilemma between the legal positivists and the natural law realists. Of the former, without the metaphysical underpinnings of an objective legal or moral standard, the legal positivists cannot supply convincing arguments to supplant the sovereign as the origin and authority of law. The natural law realists face the problem of justifying the natural law. Against both views, S. Zinaich Jr. defends a middle position, Analytical Legal Naturalism (ALN). It represents an analytic norm, both necessarily true and known a posteriori. Against the legal positivists, it supplies an objective legal standard by removing--at least for hard cases--the necessity of the will of a sovereign authority. Against the natural law realists, ALN provides a nonmoral standard which, because of its analyticity and necessity, avoids the need for metaethical speculation. Finally, ALN provides a standard that not only supplies the universalizabl
Table of ContentsContents
Preface
Introduction
1 The Ancient Greek period (429 B.C.–180 A.D.)
2 The Scholastic Period (1265–1625)
3 The Enlightenment: Hobbes, Pufendorf, Locke and Hume
4 The Counter-Enlightenment Period and Romanticism (1770–1870)
5 Austin, Hart, and Dworkin
6 Toward a Theory of Legal Naturalism
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
