On the History of the Idea of Law [Hardcover]

Collects the basic theories of law propounded by the great philosophers.On the History of the Idea of Law is the first book ever to collect and criticise the basic theories of law propounded by the great philosophers from Plato to the present. The celebrated conservative thinker Shirley Robin Letwin shows how the classical theorists understood the law as a human intervention that made possible the broad liberty that men and women enjoy in modern western societies. She also shows how this theory differs from medieval natural law, Marxist legal theory, contemporary Critical Legal Studies, and feminist jurisprudence.On the History of the Idea of Law is the first book ever to collect and criticise the basic theories of law propounded by the great philosophers from Plato to the present. The celebrated conservative thinker Shirley Robin Letwin shows how the classical theorists understood the law as a human intervention that made possible the broad liberty that men and women enjoy in modern western societies. She also shows how this theory differs from medieval natural law, Marxist legal theory, contemporary Critical Legal Studies, and feminist jurisprudence.On the History of the Idea of Law traces the development of the philosophical theory of law from its first appearance in Plato's writings to today. Shirley Letwin finds important and positive insights and tensions in the theories of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Hobbes as well as confusion and serious errors introduced by Cicero, Aquinas, Bentham, and Marx. She harnesses the insights of H.L.A. Hart and especially Michael Oakeshott to mount a devastating attack on the late twentieth-century theories of Ronald Dworkin, the Critical Legal Studies movement, and feminist jurisprudence.Editor's preface; Introduction; Part I. Law Anchored to a Cosmic Order: 1. Plato; 2. Aristotle; 3. Cicero; Part II. The Christian Revision: 4. St Augustine; 5. St Thomas Aquinas; Part III. The Modern Quest: 6. Thomas Hobbes; 7. John Locke; l*