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Defeasibility and open textureIn Jordi Ferrer Beltrán & Giovanni Battista Ratti (eds.), The Logic of Legal Requirements: Essays on Defeasibility, Oxford University Press. 2012.
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2John Austin and Constructing Theories of LawCanadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 24 (2): 431-440. 2011.One of the standard criticisms of John Austin’s work is that his portrayal of law, as essentially the command of a sovereign to its subjects, does not fit well with the way law is practiced or perceived by lawyers, judges, and citizens; and since the theory “fails to fit the facts,” Austin’s theory must be rejected in favor of later theories that have better fit. Many influential modern approaches to the nature of law, including Joseph Raz’s exclusive legal positivism and Ronald Dworkin’s interp…Read more
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95Conceptual Questions and JurisprudenceLegal Theory 1 (4): 465-479. 1995.Conceptual analysis is an integral part of legal theory, but the nature and purpose of such inquiries are often not clearly stated. In this article, I attempt to elaborate upon some of the differing reasons for conceptual analysis and what consequences may follow from choosing one objective rather than another. By showing that divergent purposes are often present in competing analyses of the same concept, I also hope to indicate why some “debates” in the jurisprudential literature are best under…Read more
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21A. D. Woozley and the Concept of Right Answers in LawRatio Juris 5 (1): 58-66. 1992.Abstract.In the debates about legal determinacy, an important but often neglected issue is what is meant in the legal context by saying that a question has a right answer. By way of a critique of A. D. Woozley's discussion of “right answers,” I try to show how this issue is connected with issues of legal truth, legal mistake, and precedent.
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152Radbruch's Formula and Conceptual AnalysisAmerican Journal of Jurisprudence 56 (1): 45-57. 2011.
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3Natural law theoryIn Dennis M. Patterson (ed.), A Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory, 2nd ed., Blackwell. 2010.
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103Jurisprudence: theory and contextCarolina Academic Press. 2015.This introduction to legal theory provides a broad overview of the main topics and theories and covers the central issues. Written in a straightforward style, the author conveys academically challenging and often controversial ideas in a lucid manner.
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Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Law |
Philosophy of Language |
Normative Ethics |