SOCIAL THEORY OF LAW: PART ONE

Autumn 2005

Lectures: Prof. Steve Fuller, Tu 11-12 in R03/04 (s.w.fuller@warwick.ac.uk)

Seminars: Stephen Norrie, Tu 9-10 and 10-11 in S009, W 9-10 in H344 (sypeax@gwmail.warwick.ac.uk)

RATIONALE: This is the first half of the two-term social theory of law course. The second half is taught by Dr. Ralf Rogowski. The course is designed to give students a sense of theoretical developments in the law from the perspective of someone who works in sociology (Fuller) and law (Rogowski).

COURSE STRUCTURE: The first half of this year’s course focuses on the sociological content of the major historic and contemporary schools of legal theory. Law students will be probably acquainted with most of these theories, at least in name, but they will be treated from a broader historical, philosophical and sociological perspective than that to which you are probably accustomed.

The course materials are relevant to both the assessed essay and the final exam, and students must demonstrate their familiarity with them. The topics of the essay and the exam are non-overlapping. In other words, if a topic appears in the assessed essay list, it is unlikely to appear on the exam. The seminar topics are meant to provide dry runs for your essays and potential exam questions. The seminar corresponding to each lecture occurs in the following week. Thus, the 11-12 lecture you hear in Week 1 will be discussed in seminar in Week 2 at either 9-10 or 10-11.

COURSE READINGS AND WEEKLY LECTURES: Students should purchase a textbook that is now available in the bookshop: Lloyd’s Introduction to Jurisprudence, 7^th edition (2001). This is the first year I am using this book. Its advantage is that it contains many original readings as well as extensive bibliographic references that should help you prepare your essays and exams. In previous years, I have used Dennis Patterson, ed., A Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory (Blackwell 1996). It is also good but it contains only survey essays (no original readings) and the quality often varies. However, as you can see from the weekly sessions below, it is possible to get much of the same material from both books. There are copies of both books in library reserve.

WEEK	DATE	LECTURE TOPIC	LLOYD’S	PATTERSON
1	27 Sep	Anthropology and Sociology of Law	Chaps 8, 11	Chaps 27-28
2	4 Oct	Natural Law and Utilitarianism	Chaps 3, 4	Chaps 6, 14, 29-30, 33
3	11 Oct	Positivism and Nazi Law	Chaps 5, 6	Chaps 15, 21-22
4	18 Oct	Marxism	Chap 12	Chap. 23
5	25 Oct	?
6	1 Nov	READING WEEK (NO CLASS)
7	8 Nov	Theories of Justice	Chap 7	Chap. 39
8	15 Nov	Legal Realism and Critical Legal Studies	Chaps 9-10, 13	Chaps 16-18
9	22 Nov	Feminism and Critical Race Theory	Chaps 14, 16	Chap. 19
10	29 Nov	Postmodern Jurisprudence	Chap 15	Chaps 24-26

The outline of each week’s lectures will be placed on my website, which you can access at http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~sysdt/Index.html. There you will also find the course outline and lectures from the last three years of this course. You will see that each year I modify the lecture notes somewhat, but you can get a good sense of what’s coming by looking at previous years. Three years ago, a different textbook was used that you may find of help as supplementary reading, especially in matters relating to the political dimension of the law: Ian Ward, An Introduction to Critical Legal Theory (Cavendish 1998).

COURSE ASSESSMENT: Students must do two assessed essays covering the two halves of the course, as well as a final examination. Each essay is worth 20% of the final mark, and the exam 60%. You must choose your first assessed essay topic from among these four:

1. Pick one of the following and explain the extent to which it is dependent on Marxist theories of law and society:
1. Feminist jurisprudence
2. Critical race theory

2. Is there a place for natural law in a secular social order?

3. Does the history of Nazi jurisprudence teach anything general about the limits of the rule of law?

4. Why is distributive justice such a controversial idea?

The assessed essay should be 2500 words, and it must be handed in at the Law School on the prescribed date. It is in your interest to send me an essay outline but you must do so by Friday of week 9 (i.e. 25 November). I will not provide any feedback on outlines submitted after that date.

SEMINAR TOPICS: They are posed as debating points. In the past, seminar groups have split up to develop arguments pro and con (you can access these on my website), but you and the seminar leader will decide collectively how to best handle the propositions this year.

1. Proposition: Inquiries into the legal systems of past and primitive cultures are irrelevant for understanding contemporary legal systems.
2. Proposition: The law can’t be moral without natural law, and natural law can’t be justified without God; therefore, the law requires God for its legitimacy.
3. Proposition: The political success of Nazi jurisprudence reflects the inherent weaknesses of legal positivism.
4. Proposition: The idea of ‘Marxist jurisprudence’ is a contradiction in terms.
5. Proposition: Distributive justice ultimately appeals to people’s worst insecurities and discourages genuine social innovation.
6. Proposition: Critical Legal Studies is merely a disappointed version of Legal Realism.
7. Proposition: There is nothing the law really can do to redress the grievances of women and ethnic minorities unless society first changes.

PROCEDURAL MATTERS: You will notice that, aside from the Law Department’s reading week (6), there is an additional week missing -- indicated by ‘?’ in the schedule of lecture topics. This indicates that there will be one week, probably in October, when the lecturer will need to fly to the United States to act as an expert witness in a trial. The date will be announced on the class e-mail list on which you will have put your name in the first week.

Finally, although the seminar leader will be your first point of contact for the course, he is free to refer you to me, in which case you should contact me by e-mail, especially if it’s content-related. In that case, if your question seems to be of the sort others might have (e.g. about the readings, lectures, some concepts, etc.), then I might circulate the response on the e-mail list.