TERMS AND CONCEPTS FOR THE MIDTERM EXAMINATION

October 27, 2006

What is jurisprudence in a concise definition?

What are positive and natural law?

What are several debates between natural and positive law proponents?

What would Bentham, Austin, Hart, and Rawls argue about natural and positive law?

How are the theories of these four theorists relevant to creating and enforcing law?

Explain what Thomas Kuhn's model have to do with the acquisition of social knowledge and the meaning of law?

What is essentialism and what does it have to do with the meaning of law?

What is the criterion of validity and its relation to the meaning of law?

What does the normative structure of law have to do with its meaning?

What is the relationship between law and morality?

Is analysis of the Speluncean Explorers case helpful in understanding law? How?

How would natural versus positive lawyers argue for or against abortion, gay union, or capital punishment?

What is the source of natural law?

When should a law be obeyed? Who says?

Explain why not or why a judge in a country with racial segregation should enforce an unjust law.

What are social contract theories and how do they relate to natural law?

Have a general idea of classical English positivism.

Can a legal system exist with force? Why or why not?

Hierarchy of norms, sanctions, and obligation.

How do we construct a theory of law out of a theory of adjudication? Who said that?

Compare and contrast Austin and Hart on jurisprudence.

Is international law "law"?

Is law a system of rules?

What is the rule of recognition?

Is their an obligation to obey the law?

How do you know a legal system from a social system?

What are rights? Where do they come from?