Books in the Law and Practical Reason series

This is the first book to bring together distinguished jurisprudential theorists, as well as up-and-coming scholars, to critically assess the nature of legal reasoning. The volume is divided into 3 parts:The first part, General Jurisprudence and Legal Reasoning, addresses issues at the intersection of general jurisprudence - those pertaining to the nature of law itself - and legal reasoning.The second part, Rules and Reasons, addresses two concepts central to two prominent types of theory of legal reasoning.The essays in the third and final part, Doctrine and Practice, delve into the mechanics of legal practice and doctrine, from a legal reasoning perspective.

This book addresses a palpable, yet widely neglected, tension in legal discourse. In our everyday legal practices - whether taking place in a courtroom, classroom, law firm, or elsewhere - we routinely and unproblematically talk of the activities of creating and applying the law. However, when legal scholars have analysed this distinction in their theories (rather than simply assuming it), many have undermined it, if not dismissed it as untenable. The book considers the relevance of distinguishing between law-creation and law-application and how this transcends the boundaries of jurisprudential enquiry. It argues that such a distinction is also a crucial component of political theory. For if there is no possibility of applying a legal rule that was created by a different institution at a previous moment in time, then our current constitutional-democratic frameworks are effectively empty vessels that conceal a power relationship between public authorities and citizens that is very different from the one on which constitutional democracy is grounded. After problematising the most relevant objections in the literature, the book presents a comprehensive defence of the distinction between creation and application of law within the structure of constitutional democracy. It does so through an integrated jurisprudential methodology, which combines insights from different disciplines (including history, anthropology, political science, philosophy of language, and philosophy of action) while also casting new light on long-standing issues in public law, such as the role of legal discretion in the law-making process and the scope of the separation of powers doctrine.

This book suggests that the common conception of law (the legislature creates the law: courts apply it) should be abandoned, offering an alternative framework building on Dworkin's interpretive theory of law.

The book argues that an understanding of the nature of legal normativity involves an understanding of the nature and structure of practical reason in the context of the law, and advances the idea that legal authority and normativity are intertwined.

Voyiakis argues that private law aims to articulate acceptable principles as to when our institutions can hold agents accountable for their choices.

The last decade or so has seen a strong renewal of interest in Kant's Legal Philosophy. The current volume brings together essays by leading Kantians along with distinguished contemporary legal and moral philosophers.

This book presents an analysis of the idea of autonomy as self-legislation and its consequences for law and morality.

This book presents an argument for the existence of moral rights held by groups and a resulting account of how to reconcile group rights with individual rights and with the rights of other groups.

In the last few years there has been an increasing interest in virtue theory among legal scholars. 'Virtue jurisprudence' has emerged as a serious candidate for a theory of law and adjudication. This book explores the relevance of virtue theory to law from a variety of perspectives.

The last decade or so has seen a strong renewal of interest in Kant's Legal Philosophy. The current volume brings together essays by leading Kantians along with distinguished contemporary legal and moral philosophers.

This book fills a major gap in the ever-increasing secondary literature on Hannah Arendt's political thought by providing a dedicated and coherent treatment of the many, various and interesting things which Arendt had to say about law.

This collection of essays is intended to contribute to the study of normativity in law by staging a thorough discussion of the notion approached from three directions: the theory of planning agency, legal conventionalism and the constitutivist approach.