BA Politics, Philosophy and Economics / Course details

The course is designed to introduce students who do not have a legal background, to some of the major authors and issues within the Anglo-American jurisprudential tradition, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between law and morality. The course will have two parts.  The first will concentrate on “analytic jurisprudence” – questions about what laws are by their nature, and whether there are any moral or conceptual limits on what a government can pass as a law.  It will also consider the concept of the “rule of law”, and its relationship to political power and legitimacy.  The second part will shift to “normative jurisprudence” – questions about what a decent legal system would look like in terms of concepts such as justice, rights, and liberty. 
 

As well as being intellectually demanding in its own right, the course will provide students with a deeper understanding of some of the theoretical themes that are implicit in other modules in their degree, and will provide a rich theoretical seam that they can mine in the course of their dissertations. 
 

By the end of the course, students will be able to

• engage in and cultivate reasoned legal and philosophical arguments, by way of both written presentation and (in seminars) oral argument;  
• produce (by a specified deadline) concise and appropriately structured discursive essays addressing a key jurisprudential issue, with accurate and appropriate use of sources;
• undertake independent online and library-based research, and use that research to formulate theses and summarise legal and ethical perspectives;
• interpret others’ arguments, and to address their strongest and weakest points in a disinterested manner;
• put textual evidence to work in the independent development of arguments;
• think clearly, to identify and assess competing principles impartially, and to identify and solve legal and ethical problems;
• discuss such problems orally and to articulate relevant conclusions. 

• HLA Hart, The Concept of Law
• Nigel Simmonds, Central Issues in Jurisprudence
• JS Mill, On Liberty
• Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia
• Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously; Law’s Empire