When people think of the words “law” or “legal,” they usually have cold connotations associated with the terms. In particular, the “legal-philosophical relationship”. A deeper concern about all forms of conceptual analysis is the question of why we should care about anyone`s legal concept (Marmor 2013, 216-217; Leiter 2007, 177-79). After all, as philosophers, it seems that it is the nature of law itself that we care about understanding (Raz 2004, 7, 10). Certainly, there are interesting sociological questions about what different groups of people believe this to be the case when it comes to how the law works. But it is not obvious that there is something specifically philosophical about such questions. To the extent that philosophers (as philosophers) are interested in what people believe about a particular concept, it is because understanding people`s beliefs about the concept is one way of understanding what a concept is (Raz 2004, 4, 10). Accordingly, one might think that what legal theories seek to grasp is not anyone`s concept of law in particular, but the nature of the law itself. (See also Concepts entry, section 5.2.) The first important category of methodological issues in jurisprudence concerns the purpose of first-order legal theories – that is, the phenomenon that these theories seek to explain. When one takes a position on what is the real purpose of a first-rate legal theory, one enters into a number of other methodological obligations. This involves taking a position on when such theories succeed, taking a position on the kind of data these theories are supposed to systematize and explain, and determining what kind of arguments are legitimately used to decide between one of these theories and their competitors. John Rawls (1964) argues that there is a moral obligation to obey the law as law in societies where there is a mutually beneficial and equitable system of social cooperation. What establishes a moral obligation in such societies to obey the law by law is a duty of fair play: fairness requires the obedience of people who consciously accept the benefits provided in a society organized around a just system of mutually beneficial cooperation.

There are some problems here. First, Rawls` arguments do not demonstrate the existence of a substantially independent obligation to comply with the law; Obligation arises only in societies that institutionalize a just system of social cooperation. Second, even in such societies, citizens have no real possibility of denying these benefits. For example, I cannot avoid the benefits of laws that provide clean air. But accepting benefits that cannot be denied cannot be a commitment to fair play. Legal paternalism is the view that the state is authorized to legislate against what Mill calls “self-referential acts” if necessary to prevent individuals from inflicting serious physical or emotional harm on themselves. As Gerald Dworkin describes it, paternalistic interference is “an infringement of a person`s freedom of action justified solely by reasons related solely to the well-being, goodness, happiness, needs, interests or values of the person being coerced” (G. Dworkin 1972, p.

65). For example, a law requiring helmets to be worn while riding a motorcycle is paternalistic interference to the extent that it is justified by concerns about driver safety. In addition to analytical jurisprudence, philosophy of law also deals with normative legal theories. “Normative jurisprudence includes normative, evaluative and otherwise prescriptive questions about law. [9] For example: What is the purpose of the law? What moral or political theories form the basis of law? Three approaches have had an influence on contemporary moral and political philosophy, and these approaches are reflected in normative legal theories: This natural law, which accords with humanity and is dictated by God Himself, is, of course, superior to any other in obligation. It is binding throughout the world, in all countries and at all times: no human law is valid if it contradicts it; and those who are able-bodied derive all their strength and authority, directly or immediately, from this original (1979, p. 41). It may be interesting to note that legal theories that claim that legal validity depends in part on moral considerations must also share some view of the nature of morality. They must adopt an objective attitude towards the nature of moral values. Otherwise, if moral values are not objective and legality depends on morality, legality would also become subjective, which would pose serious problems for the question of what the law is. Some legal theories, however, emphasize the subjectivity of moral judgments, embracing the skeptical conclusions that emerge about the nature of law. According to these skeptical theories, law is indeed deeply dependent on morality, but since these theorists assume that morality is completely subjective, this only shows that law is also deeply subjective, always at stake, so to speak.

This skeptical approach, which is fashionable in so-called postmodern literature, crucially depends on a subjectivist theory of values, which is rarely articulated in a differentiated way in this literature. But even this richer understanding of conceptual property and the fleshier picture of conceptual analysis it produces has been widely criticized (Marmor 2013, 215-217; Raz, 2004, p. 10; Leiter 2007, 177-79). An immediate question arises is which legal concept represents exactly the correct purpose of a legal theory. Is this the legal concept that legal practitioners in a particular jurisdiction possess? Or is it a universally shared legal concept? Worries threaten one way or another. If a legal theory seeks only to capture the concept of law used in a particular jurisdiction, this would make the theory narrow-minded and it could lose its interest to those who do not deal with that particular jurisdiction. On the other hand, one might doubt that there really is a universally shared legal term used by practitioners in all jurisdictions – or if there is, it is doubtful that it is more than the kind of thin concept one possesses because one knows what the word “law” means in its legal sense. Normative jurisprudence includes normative, evaluative and otherwise prescriptive questions about law.