Books in the Law and Philosophy Library series

Justifying Taxes offers readers some of the elements of a democratic tax law, considered within its political and philosophical context in order to determine the extent of legitimate tax obligations.

It includes matters of legal history and appeals to both legal scholars and philosophers, especially those with an interest in theories of law and the philosophy of law.

In the final sections, the book examines the question of whether the political murders on the politician Pim Fortuyn and the film director Theo van Gogh, the reactions to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's film Submission, as well as the success of the populist politician Geert Wilders are signs of the end of Dutch tolerance.

Liberal defences of nationalism have largely neglected the fact that nationalism is primarily about land. This book examines the generic types of territorial claims customarily put forward by national groups as justification for their territorial demands.

in Tort Law, Criminal Law and Intellectual Property Law) and in different times and places (e.g. in Roman Law, Rabbinic Law and the Common Law). The collection will be of interest to theorists and historians of legal reasoning, as well as scholars and practitioners of the law more generally, in both common and civil law traditions.

It is not unusual that formal and informal discussions about the political system, its virtues, and its many defects, conclude in a discussion about impartiality. We show our concerns with impartiality when, facing a particular problem, we try to figure out the best solution for all of us, given our conflicting interests.

This book critically examines the conception of legal science and the nature of law developed by Hans Kelsen. It provides a single, dedicated space for a range of established European scholars to engage with the influential work of this Austrian jurist, legal philosopher, and political philosopher.The introduction provides a thematization of the Kelsenian notion of law as a legal science. Divided into six parts, the chapter contributions feature distinct levels of analysis. Overall, the structure of the book provides a sustained reflection upon central aspects of Kelsenian legal science and the nature of law.Parts one and two examine the validity of the project of Kelsenian legal science with particular reference to the social fact thesis, the notion of a science of positive law and the specifically Kelsenian concept of the basic norm (Grundnorm). The next three parts engage in a critical analysis of the relationship of Kelsenian legal science to constitutionalism, practical reason, and human rights.The last part involves an examination of the continued pertinence of Kelsenian legal science as a theory of the nature of law with a particular focus upon contemporary non-positivist theories of law. The conclusion discusses the increasing distance of contemporary theories of legal positivism from a Kelsenian notion of legal science in its consideration of the nature of law.

This book offers its readers an overview of recent developments in the theory of legal argumentation written by representatives from various disciplines, including argumentation theory, philosophy of law, logic and artificial intelligence.

Fourteen papers, together with a long analytical introduction by the editors, were selected from the contributions of legal theorists, computer scientists, philosophers and logicians who were members of an International Working Group supported by the European Commission.

Justifying Taxes offers readers some of the elements of a democratic tax law, considered within its political and philosophical context in order to determine the extent of legitimate tax obligations.

The first edition of this book introduced a coherence theory of law that influenced the development of non-monotonic logics for the analysis of legal reasoning. This edition contains a new Introduction that fully explores that development.

The central question in legal philosophy is the relationship between law and morality. In Law, Order and Freedom, a historical overview is given pertaining to the question of the extent to which the modern Enlightenment values can serve as the universal foundation of law and society.

Grounded in linguistic philosophy and Carnapian semantics, this book's innovative contribution to analytical jurisprudence also addresses the issues of institutional philosophy, social pragmatism, and legal principles as envisioned by Dworkin, among others.

This book proposes a new approach to the retributive theory of punishment, arguing that it should be understood in its traditional formulation that has been long forgotten or dismissed: that punishment is essentially a defense of the honor of the victim