The Architecture of Law: Rebuilding Law in the Classical Tradition

by Brian M. McCall

This book argues that classical natural law jurisprudence provides a superior answer to the questions “What is law?” and “How should law be made?” rather than those provided by legal positivism and “new” natural law theories. What is law? How should law be made? Using St. Thomas Aquinas’s analogy of God as an architect, Brian McCall argues that classical natural law jurisprudence provides an answer to these questions far superior to those provided by legal positivism or the “new” natural law theories. The Architecture of Law explores the metaphor of law as an architectural building project, with eternal law as the foundation, natural law as the frame, divine law as the guidance provided by the architect, and human law as the provider of the defining details and ornamentation. Classical jurisprudence is presented as a synthesis of the work of the greatest minds of antiquity and the medieval period, including Cicero, Aristotle, Gratian, Augustine, and Aquinas; the significant texts of each receive detailed exposition in these pages. Along with McCall’s development of the architectural image, he raises a question that becomes a running theme throughout the To what extent does one need to know God to accept and understand natural law jurisprudence, given its foundational premise that all authority comes from God? The separation of the study of law from knowledge of theology and morality, McCall argues, only results in the impoverishment of our understanding of law. He concludes that they must be reunited in order for jurisprudence to flourish. This book will appeal to academics, students in law, philosophy, and theology, and to all those interested in legal or political philosophy.

Genres: Law, Philosophy

560 pages, Hardcover

Published May 30, 2018

About the author

After completing his Undergraduate and Masters degrees, Professor McCall taught English in a private high school for two years before commencing his law degree. He received honors for obtaining the highest grades over the three year law degree and for his specific work in Corporations, Torts and Wills and Future Interests. During his third year of law school, Professor McCall taught foreign lawyers studying for their L.L.M. a course in legal writing and research. He also served as a teaching assistant for a course on Law and Philosophy taught in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

After obtaining his law degree, Professor McCall joined the international law firm of Dechert LLP where he focused on cross-border mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance transactions. From 1999 to 2006 he practiced in the firm's London office to focus exclusively on cross-border transactions. In 2004 he was elected a partner of the firm. Some of the clients he advised included Citigroup, JP Morgan, The London Stock Exchange, Comcast Corporation, Tate & Lyle Plc and Rabobank. He worked on many ground breaking transactions including one of the first public to private transactions in Germany and the first US company conducting a Regulation S offering on the London Stock Exchange's AIM Market.

Professor McCall has been a speaker at several conferences on consumer finance, corporate governance, legal philosophy, international securities offerings and private equity law. He has authored several books and articles on corporate governance law, commercial law, and legal philosophy.

He joined the OU College of Law in 2006 and was awarded tenure in 2012. In 2013 he was selected to hold the Orpha and Maurice Merrill Endowed Professorship of Law. He was invited to be a Visiting Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, where he taught Business Associations and a seminar on Law, Business, Society, and Catholicism in 2014.

Reviews

[K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty much the big, academic version of Budziszewski's Line Through the Heart. Not sure it really needed to be quite this big. It also doesn't do a great job defending itself from other positions; it's more of a pure exposition, which is fine if that's what you're looking for.

[Tristan Silva II · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finally finished this book. It’s really great. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it as a place to start with learning about jurisprudence though. I’d be foolish to claim that I got my arms around every point made in the book. Still, I think that anyone who wants to say they think seriously about law—as opposed to just treating it like magic combinations of letters, words, and sentences—should read Architecture of Law.

I’m sure it’s not perfect, and I can think of a few nits to pick, but the approach is to provide a thicker conception of natural law and to demonstrate how positivism and “new” natural law are imperfect because they lack a recognition of necessary/important features of law. With a full account of law, McCall offers solutions to problems that can only come about when lesser understandings of law hit their self-imposed ceilings.