Law in its Own Right

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What, precisely, is the relationship between legality and morality Does legal validity rest upon moral validity Are legal obligations moral obligations For some years now schools of jurisprudential Naturalism and Positivism have become increasingly ambiguous in their responses to these questions. Olsen and Toddington argue that equivocation on the central issue here - that of obligation - has brought legal theory to the point where leading legal positivists and natural lawyers no longer retain significant differences. Instead, they allege, we are left with the remnants of what has always been, philosophically, a phoney war. This analysis of the concept of law, arguing from the perspectives of social science and political philosophy, shows that jurisprudence must acknowledge that the political, the moral and the legal are located within a continuum of practical reason, and that law's "autonomy" from morality can not entail its "separation" from it.

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...it presents both classic and recent arguments and debates from legal theory in an accessible, articulate, and cogent way to both the legal theorist and the more general social theorist. Olsen and Toddington have produced a clearly and powerfully persuasively argued text that fully engages the reader with its lucid, yet rigorous style of argument. I can suggest no better introduction than this to the reader interested in the issues contained in this beautifully written, candidly argued book. -- Stephen A Brown * Studies in Social and Political Thought, June 2002 *