Understandings of law and politics are intrinsically bound up with broader visions of the human condition. Sean Coyle argues for a renewed engagement with the juridical and political philosophies of the Western intellectual tradition, and takes up questions pondered by Aristotle, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas and Hobbes in seeking a deeper understanding of law, politics, freedom, justice and order. Criticising modern theories for their failure to engage with fundamental questions, he explores the profound connections between justice and order and raises the neglected question of whether human beings in all their imperfection can ever achieve truly just order in this life. Above all, he confronts the question of whether the open society is the natural home of liberals who have given up faith in human progress (there are no ideal societies), or whether liberal political order is itself the ideal society?
• Offers a systematic understanding of law and justice that challenges the predominant assumptions of the present day • Proposes an ambitious and original argument which emphasises the importance of justice and order as a theologico-political problem and broadens the terrain of jurisprudence to encompass neglected questions • Explores philosophical questions about the nature of law and politics in a historically sensitive way, allowing readers to find a way into jurisprudential debates surrounding the nature of law by examining its origins and assumptions
Contents
Introduction; Part I. Jurisprudence: 1. Jurisprudence and the liberal order; 2. Concept and reality in jurisprudence; 3. On the 'Protestant' inheritance of juridical thought; 4. The form and direction of Anglo-American jurisprudence; 5. Three approaches to jurisprudence; Part II. Understanding the Present: 6. Authority and tradition: visions of law and politics; 7. Legalism and modernity I: identifying and understanding the problem; 8. Legalism and modernity II: reflections upon the problem; 9. Political thought and the 'well-ordered society'; 10. The limits of legal ideologies; 11. Conservatism and its dilemmas; 12. Liberal jurisprudence and its order; Part III. Justice: 13. Justice without mercy; 14. Justice and moral argument; 15. Fallen justice; 16. Freedom and justice in a democratic age.
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