Legal Positivism
- Emphasizes that law is socially constructed
- Law is synonymous with positive norms, that is, norms made by the legislator are considered as common or case law
- Does NOT base law on divine commandments, reason, or human rights
How would positivists answer the three questions provided in the slides regarding taxes, assisted suicide, and people with disabilities?
Positivists are not concerned with moral content
Natural Law
Statements that are wrong everywhere such as murder, rape, and etc.
How would natural lawyers answer the three questions provided in the slides regarding taxes, assisted suicide, and people with disabilities?
If resources are seen to be morally distributed, then high-income earners should not be more highly taxed, physicians should never assist with suicide, and persons with disabilities should not be given preferential treatment in matters of employment
Legal Realism
- A theory that all law derives from prevailing social interests and public policy; according to this theory, judges consider social interests and public policy when deciding a case.
- Believes that legal science should only investigate law with the value-free methods of natural science, rather than through philosophical inquiries.
How would legal realists answer the three questions provided in the slides regarding taxes, assisted suicide, and people with disabilities?
They would need to know more about the social environment before making any decisions; they would need to know the moral, political, and economic issues surrounding these amendments.
Marxist Theory of Law (3)
- Law is the product of economic forces
- Law is considered to be the tool of the ruling class to maintain its power over the working class
- Law will wither away in the future communist society
How would a Marxist answer the three questions provided in the slides regarding taxes, assisted suicide, and people with disabilities?
- High-income earners should pay higher taxes
- Physicians-assisted suicide falls outside of the Marxist perspective because the theory is economically based, not morally
- Preferential treatment for those with disabilities would also be supported by marx
Critical Legal Perspective
- Laws are devised to maintain the status quo of society and thereby codify its biases against marginalized groups
- Key goals:
1. Demonstrate the ambiguity and possible preferential outcomes of supposedly impartial and rigid legal doctrines
2. To publicize historical, social, economic, and psychological results of legal decisions
3. To demystify legal analysis and legal culture in order to impose transparency on legal processes so they earn the general support of socially responsible citizens
How would critical legal perspective advocate answer the three questions provided in the slides regarding taxes, assisted suicide, and people with disabilities?
Not clear, but they would most likely support higher taxation, assisted suicide would be a matter of personal choice and dignity and view preferential employment for those with disabilities as advantageous.
Feminist Theories of Law
Identifies the pervasive onfluence of patriarchy and masculinist norms on legal structures and demontstrates their effects on the material conditions of women and girls who may not conform to cisgender norms
The Anarchists and Libertarian Perspectives
- Everyone has rights that shouldn’t be violated
- Anarchism is the philosophical opposition to authority - social, political, and economic - together with the correspondent belief that the state ought to be abolished, that is, that society could and should function without it
Purpose of Legal System
- Keep the peace
- Maintain the status quo
- Preserve individual rights
- Protect minorities against majorities
- Promote social justice
- Provide for orderly social change
