SOSC 4359 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Jeremy Bentham, Hans Kelsen, Roscoe Pound
4 Oct 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Asks the main question of what is law? . Tamanaha gives examples of different theorists who attempted to give law a definition: plato, aristotle, cicero, aquinas, bacon, hobbes, leibniz, spinoza, locke, hume, Kant, fichte, weber, malinowski, roscoe pound, donald black, eugene ehrlich, Each of the theorists listed above gave their own definitions and understandings of what law is. What is law will never only have one definition. How someone defined law will vary based upon their life experiences (where they live, their class, etc. : this leads to many disagreements amongst the theorists. Also, rather than defining law, these theorists attempt to define what law ought to be and that"s a completely different question. In many instances where legal systems exist, they have been seen by their citizenry law, despite being unjust and to deny these systems the label of law would be confusing and pointless.
