The Legal Views of Five Philosophical Men

The Legal Views of Five Philosophical Men

LS490-01

Kaplan University

The Legal Views of Five Philosophical Men

Legal philosophy is a hard concept to grasp at times, but I think that the philosophers of many generations did an excellent job researching the subject in general. The basic concepts of law, according to Murphy (2006), would be “law is a social phenomenon, law is authoritative, and law is for the common good” (p. 4). For this assignment, I will identify five philosophers and their ideologies on the concept of the nature of law compared to these previously stated commonplaces of law. The five philosophers I have chosen to represent for this assignment are John Austin, H.L.A. Hart, Lon Fuller, Joseph Raz, and Thomas Aquinas. I will characterize each one of their views as being logical or illogical, consistent or inconsistent, and persuasive or unpersuasive. Next, I will criticize the five philosopher’s views in the same manner. For each one of their ideologies, I will provide an example to support my explanations and findings. I will begin by discussing John Austin and his philosophical views of legal positivism. The same discussion will follow on each of the remaining four philosophers.

Mr. Austin’s View of the Law

John Austin viewed law as a legal positivism, which is a term that separates moral rules from positive law, and suggested, “Where there is law, there are patterns of commanding and obeying” (Murphy, 2006, p. 17). Law begins with society, because without people laws would not exist. This idea would correlate with law as a social phenomenon. To further his analysis, Austin believed that commands supported by threats of sanctions from an authoritative figure of a sovereign was the sole reason that people complied with laws. Is Austin’s view of legal positivism logical or illogical? I would have to say that his view is logical in some cases, but not in others. For example, the laws in...