Normative Jurisprudence: An Introduction

Cambridge Introductions to Philosophy and Law

by Robin West

Normative Jurisprudence aims to reinvigorate normative legal scholarship that both criticizes positive law and suggests reforms for it, on the basis of stated moral values and legalistic ideals. It looks sequentially and in detail at the three major traditions in jurisprudence – natural law, legal positivism, and critical legal studies – that have in the past provided philosophical foundations for just such normative scholarship. Over the last fifty years or so, all of these traditions, although for different reasons, have taken a number of different turns – toward empirical analysis, conceptual analysis, or Foucaultian critique – and away from straightforward normative criticism. As a result, normative legal scholarship – scholarship that is aimed at criticism and reform – is now lacking a foundation in jurisprudential thought. The book criticizes those developments and suggests a return, albeit with different and in many ways larger challenges, to this traditional understanding of the purpose of legal scholarship.

220 pages, Hardcover

First published August 22, 2011

About the author

Robin West (born 1954) is the Frederick J. Haas Professor of Law and Philosophy and Associate Dean (Research and Academic Programs) at the Georgetown University Law Center. West's research is primarily concerned with feminist legal theory, constitutional law and theory, philosophy of law, and the law and literature movement.

West holds a B.A. and a J.D. (1979) from the University of Maryland and a masters in judicial studies from Stanford. West came to Georgetown after teaching at the University of Maryland Law School from 1986 to 1991, and at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law from 1982 to 1985.

West is best known for her work in the ethics of care and feminist legal theory.

Reviews

[Chai · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual -- brilliant, brilliant Robin West!