undergraduate Law courses

Jurisprudence and legal theory

[This course is compulsory under Schemes A, B and F and optional under the Graduate Entry Routes.]

Jurisprudence poses the fundamental questions about the nature of law, its place in society and how a legal system operates as a system of rules and as a social institution engaging with ideals of justice and often conflicting moral codes. While covering the key developments in classic and
contemporary legal theory, from natural law through legal positivism, Marxism, critical legal studies (including critical race theory) and feminist jurisprudence, and engaging with issues about judicial decision-making that connect critically with substantive law courses, ultimately
this is a subject in which there are no authorities and no final court of appeal: the reader/the student must be the judge. This makes it a difficult subject, but also a rewarding one.