Jurisprudence
jurisprudence: an overview
The word jurisprudence derives from the
Latin term juris prudentia, which means "the
study, knowledge, or science of law." In the
United States jurisprudence commonly
means the philosophy of law. Legal
philosophy has many aspects, but four of
them are the most common. The first and
the most prevalent form of jurisprudence
seeks to analyze, explain, classify, and
criticize entire bodies of law. Law school
textbooks and legal encyclopedias
represent this type of scholarship. The
second type of jurisprudence compares and
contrasts law with other fields of
knowledge such as literature, economics,
religion, and the social sciences. The third
type of jurisprudence seeks to reveal the
historical, moral, and cultural basis of a
particular legal concept. The fourth body of
jurisprudence focuses on finding the answer
to such abstract questions as What is law?
How do judges (properly) decide cases?
Apart from different types of jurisprudence,
different schools of jurisprudence exist.
Formalism, or conceptualism, treats law
like math or science. Formalists believe
that a judge identifies the relevant legal
principles, applies them to the facts of a
case, and logically deduces a rule that will
govern the outcome of the dispute. In
contrast, proponents of legal realism
believe that most cases before courts
present hard questions that judges must
resolve by balancing the interests of the
parties and ultimately drawing an arbitrary
line on one side of the dispute. This line,
realists maintain, is drawn according to the
political, economic, and psychological
inclinations of the judge. Some legal
realists even believe that a judge is able to
shape the outcome of the case based on
personal biases.
Apart from the realist-formalist dichotomy,
there is the classic debate over the
appropriate sources of law between
positivist and natural law schools of
thought. Positivists argue that there is no
connection between law and morality and
the the only sources of law are rules that
have been expressly enacted by a
governmental entity or court of law.
Naturalists, or proponents of natural law,
insist that the rules enacted by government
are not the only sources of law. They argue
that moral philosophy, religion, human
reason and individual conscience are also
integrate parts of the law.
There are no bright lines between different
schools of jurisprudence. The legal
philosophy of a particular legal scholar may
consist of a combination of strains from
many schools of legal thought. Some
scholars think that it is more appropriate to
think about jurisprudence as a continuum.
The above mentioned schools of legal
thoughts are only part of a diverse
jurisprudential picture of the United States.
Other prominent schools of legal thought
exist. Critical legal studies, feminist
jurisprudence , law and economics,
utilitarianism, and legal pragmatism are but
a few of them.
