A Guide to Critical Legal Studies
- ISBN-10
- 0674367553
- ISBN-13
- 9780674367555
- Category
- Law / General
- Pages
- 360
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1987
- Publisher
- Harvard University Press
- Authors
- Mark Kelman, Professor of Law Mark Kelman
Description
Until now there has been no summary or overview of the wide range of work contributing to critical legal studies, the movement that has aroused such a furor in the communities of law and political philosophy. This book outlines and evaluates the principal strands of critical legal studies, and achieves much more as well.
A good deal of the writing in critical legal studies has been devoted to laying bare the contradictions in liberal thought. There have been attacks and counterattacks on the liberal position and on the more conservative law and economics position. Now Mark Kelman demonstrates that any critique of law and economics is inextricably tied to a broader critique of liberalism.
There are three central contradictions in liberal thought: between a commitment to mechanically applicable rules and to standards that fluctuate with situations; between intrinsic individual values and the objective knowledge of ethical truths; and between free will and determinism. Kelman shows us the pervasiveness of these contradictions in legal doctrine; their connection to broader political theory and to visions of human nature; and, finally, the degree to which mainstream thought tends to privilege certain of these commitments over others.
The author also analyzes two of the most significant components of jurisprudence today the law and economics discipline and the legal process school. He concludes with a lively discussion of the role of law generally and of "cognitive legitimation," or the ways in which legal thought can make the unnecessary, the contingent, and the unjust seem natural, inevitable, and fair.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Critical Legal Studies: A Guide To The Literature
By Richard W Bauman1599-699 GORDON, Robert W., "Bargaining With the Devil" [review of Ri ard D. Kahlenberg, Broken Contract: A Memoir of Harvard Law School] (1992) 105 Harv. L. Rev. 2041-60 GORDON, Robert W., "Critical Legal Studies as a Tea ing Method"
-
Politics, Postmodernity and Critical Legal Studies: The Legality of the Contingent
By Peter Goodrich, Costas Douzinas, Yifat HachamovitchIt is the first book to systematically apply a critical philosophy to the substance of common law. The book develops a coruscating and interdisciplinary overview of the politics and cultural significance of the institutions of the law.
-
The Critical Lawyers' Handbook
By Ian Grigg-Spall, Paddy IrelandA handbook written by critical lawyers throughout the country, which provides students, teachers and practitioners of law with a guide to critical legal theory and practice.
-
The Critical Lawyer's Handbook
By Ian Grigg-Spall, Paddy IrelandA handbook written by critical lawyers throughout the country, which provides students, teachers and practitioners of law with a guide to critical legal theory and practice.
-
Research Handbook on Critical Legal Theory
By Emilios Christodoulidis, Marco Goldoni, Ruth DukesCritical theory, characteristically linked with the politics of theoretical engagement, covers the manifold of the connections between theory and praxis.
-
Critical Legal Studies
By James BoyleCritical Legal Studies
-
Critical Legal Studies and the Campaign for American Law Schools: A Revolution to Break the Liberal Consensus
By Paul BaumgardnerCritical Legal Studies and the Campaign for American Law Schools tells the story of the critical legal studies movement.
-
The Critical Legal Studies Movement: Another Time, A Greater Task
By Roberto Mangabeira UngerThis new edition includes a revised version of the original text, preceded by an extended essay in which its author discusses what is happening now and what should happen next in legal thought.
-
A Guide to Civil Procedure: Integrating Critical Legal Perspectives
By Brooke Coleman, Elizabeth Porter, Suzette MalveauxThis book will give students and scholars alike a more complex view of their roles as attorneys, sharpen their litigation skills, and provide a stronger sense of community and purpose in the law school classroom.
-
The Critical Legal Pocketbook
By Illan rua Wall, Freya Middleton, Sahar ShahInterspersed among these are fifteen key concept notes that aim to help students grasp the complexity and plurality of critical analyses of law.