Prof Michael Wilkinson

This course is compulsory on the LLB in Laws. This course is not available as an outside option nor to General Course students.

The aims of the course are: To introduce students to philosophical thinking about the law. To familiarise students with the main methodological, conceptual, and normative issues in the study of law and its legitimacy. To provide students with knowledge of some of the most influential legal and political philosophers and their theories of the state and law. To encourage and enable students to think about doctrinal legal questions from a philosophical and critical perspective. To help students to develop legal reasoning skills by training them in abstract, philosophical arguments. Some of the themes that the course covers are: the social contract tradition (Hobbes, Kant, Rawls, Rousseau); the democratic legitimacy of the state and its law; Marxism and critical theory; Arendt’s political theory and its implications for law; methodology in jurisprudence; natural law; legal positivism; the rule of law and legality; the use and significance of principles in adjudication and legal reasoning.

This course will have a minimum of two hours of teaching content each week in Autumn Term and Winter Term in the form of a lecture (every week) and one hour class. This course includes a reading week in Weeks 6 of Autumn Term and Winter Term.

Students will be expected to write at least one essay per term.

Students are provided with outlines and readings for topics discussed in the Michaelmas and Lent Terms. For some introductory and background reading see: S. Veitch, E. Christodoulidis, and M. Goldoni, Jurisprudence: Themes and Concepts (3rd. ed), Routledge 2018; J.E. Penner and E. Melissaris, McCoubrey & White's Textbook on Jurisprudence, OUP 2012; Brian Bix, Jurisprudence: Theory and Context (3rd ed.), Thomson Sweet & Maxwell 2003.

Exam (100%, duration: 3 hours and 30 minutes) in the spring exam period.