Legal Theory 733518
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Description
Legal Theory explores questions about the nature of law, its place in human societies, and its relationship to morality and justice. These questions, central to the history of legal theory, are explored in relation to contemporary conditions of legal, political and social organisation.
The aim of the course is for students to further their understanding of the workings of law and its role in ordering and regulating human society and conduct. The questions we investigate have productive historical and conceptual traditions but no settled answers, and students will be encouraged to critically evaluate their own and others’ theories and arguments. To this end, the subject will examine a range of analytical methods and approaches, and assist students to further develop skills in critical analysis, reasoning and argument.
In any one year, the specific topics to be studied in Legal Theory will examine key questions in jurisprudence; law, society and culture; authority, rule and law; or law and ethics. These topics will be explored in the context of the plural traditions of legal theory, and by way of examples from current debates about the character of law in contemporary society, both nationally and internationally. In addition, legal examples will be taken from subjects studied concurrently (especially Property and Constitutional Law) and in the previous semester (Principles of Public Law and Dispute Resolution in particular).
PreRequisites
Legal Method and Reasoning, Principles of Public Law, Torts, Obligations, Dispute Resolution.
