Books in the Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Law series

This book is both a work of intellectual history and a contribution to legal philosophy. It represents a serious and philosophically sophisticated guide to modern American legal theory, demonstrating that legal positivism has been a misunderstood and underappreciated perspective through most of twentieth-century American legal thought.

Do individuals have a positive right of self-defence? And if so, what are the limits of this right? These are two of the questions explored by Suzanne Uniacke in this comprehensive 1994 philosophical discussion of the principles relevant to self-defence as a moral and legal justification of homicide.

This major study advances an interpretation of criminal justification defences that views them as an integral component of the structure of the criminal law. The book integrates philosophical analysis with a consideration of contemporary applications and shows how these defences are key components of criminal law.

For several decades the work of Joel Feinberg has been the most influential in legal, political and social philosophy in the English-speaking world. This 1994 volume honours that body of work by presenting fifteen essays, many of them by leading legal and political philosophers, that explore the problems that have engaged Feinberg over the years.

This book examines responsibility and luck as these issues arise in tort law, criminal law, and distributive justice. This is a challenging and provocative book that will be of special interest to moral and political philosophers, legal theorists, and political scientists.

This book is an interdisciplinary study of the fundamental normative issues underpinning immigration policy. A distinguished group of economists, political scientists and philosophers offer a stimulating and provocative discussion of this complex topic.

This study of discrimination focuses not on differences between men and women but on what women need to lead successful lives. This work promises to be a milestone in the debate about gender equality and will interest students and professionals in the areas of legal theory and gender studies.

Five legal theorists tackle a range of fundamental questions on the nature of the philosophy of criminal law. The essays discuss some of the principles by which a system of law should be structured, and they ask whether our own systems are genuinely principled or riven by basic contradictions, reflecting deeper political and social conflicts.

This book offers an original theory of adjudication focused on the ethics of judging in courts of law, and proposes two main theses - the good faith thesis and the permissible discretion thesis. Together these two theses oppose both conservative theories and leftist critical theories.

Using informal game theory in the analysis of norms and customs, Hetcher applies his theory of norms to tort law and Internet privacy laws. This book will appeal to students and professionals in law, philosophy, and political and social theory.

This volume, first published in 2000, considers the intersection between objectivity in ethics and the objectivity in law. It presents a survey of live issues in metaethics, and examines their relevance to theorizing about law and adjudication.

This book, first published in 2000, is a collection of essays by prominent scholars writing in commercial law theory. The essays address the foundations of efficiency analysis as the dominant theoretical paradigm in contemporary corporate and commercial law scholarship. The volume reflects the most exciting work being done in contemporary legal theory.

This book examines the relationship between collective responsibility and individual guilt. It presents a rigorous philosophical account of the nature of our relations to the social groups in which we participate, and uses that account in a discussion of contemporary moral theory.

This collection of essays written by some of the most eminent scholars in the field, examines the most central issues of property theory from a variety of perspectives. The essays discuss the nature of property and property rights, transmission of property after death and intellectual and cultural property.

This collection of six full-length essays, written by some of the most eminent scholars in the field, explores the general theory of contract law from a variety of theoretical perspectives. The volume addresses a wide range of issues, both methodological and substantive, in the theory and practice of contract law.