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166-431: Jurisprudence , also known as theory of law or philosophy of law , is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values; as well as the relationship between law and other fields of study, including economics , ethics , history , sociology , and political philosophy . Modern jurisprudence began in

332-405: A priestly role . He could not marry a woman from a senatorial family, nor achieve legitimate senatorial rank himself, but during the early Empire, freedmen held key positions in the government bureaucracy, so much so that Hadrian limited their participation by law. The rise of successful freedmen—through political influence or wealth—is a characteristic of early Imperial society. The prosperity of

498-477: A Free Society. Director's appointment to the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1946 began a half-century of intellectual productivity, although his reluctance about publishing left few writings behind. He taught antitrust courses at the law school with Edward Levi , who eventually would serve as Dean of Chicago's Law School, President of the University of Chicago, and as U.S. Attorney General in

664-538: A Nobel Prize). In 1972, Richard Posner, a law and economics scholar and the major advocate of the positive theory of efficiency, published the first edition of Economic Analysis of Law and founded The Journal of Legal Studies , both are regarded as important events. Gordon Tullock and Friedrich Hayek also wrote intensively in the area and influenced to spread of law and economics. In 1958, Director founded The Journal of Law & Economics , which he co-edited with Nobel laureate Ronald Coase , and which helped to unite

830-577: A dominant social group. Law and economics The historical antecedents of law and economics can be traced back to the classical economists , who are credited with the foundations of modern economic thought. As early as the 18th century, Adam Smith discussed the economic effects of mercantilist legislation; later, David Ricardo opposed the British Corn Laws on the grounds that they hindered agricultural productivity; and Frédéric Bastiat , in his influential book The Law , examined

996-563: A faction that opposed his concentration of power. This faction was driven from Rome and defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC by Mark Antony and Caesar's adopted son Octavian . Antony and Octavian divided the Roman world between them, but this did not last long. Octavian's forces defeated those of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. In 27 BC the Senate gave him

1162-425: A fifth of the population and played a major role in the economy. Slavery was a complex institution that supported traditional Roman social structures as well as contributing economic utility. In urban settings, slaves might be professionals such as teachers, physicians, chefs, and accountants; the majority of slaves provided trained or unskilled labour. Agriculture and industry, such as milling and mining, relied on

1328-640: A fine for a crime for which an humilior might receive a scourging . Execution, which was an infrequent legal penalty for free men under the Republic, could be quick and relatively painless for honestiores , while humiliores might suffer the kinds of torturous death previously reserved for slaves, such as crucifixion and condemnation to the beasts . In the early Empire, those who converted to Christianity could lose their standing as honestiores , especially if they declined to fulfil religious responsibilities, and thus became subject to punishments that created

1494-425: A freedman were born free, with full rights of citizenship. After manumission, a slave who had belonged to a Roman citizen enjoyed active political freedom ( libertas ), including the right to vote. His former master became his patron ( patronus ): the two continued to have customary and legal obligations to each other. A freedman was not entitled to hold public office or the highest state priesthoods, but could play

1660-629: A high-achieving group of freedmen is attested by inscriptions throughout the Empire . The Latin word ordo (plural ordines ) is translated variously and inexactly into English as "class, order, rank". One purpose of the Roman census was to determine the ordo to which an individual belonged. Two of the highest ordines in Rome were the senatorial and equestrian. Outside Rome, cities or colonies were led by decurions , also known as curiales . "Senator"

1826-571: A higher social class. Most of the emperors were bilingual but had a preference for Latin in the public sphere for political reasons, a "rule" that first started during the Punic Wars . Different emperors up until Justinian would attempt to require the use of Latin in various sections of the administration but there is no evidence that a linguistic imperialism existed during the early Empire. After all freeborn inhabitants were universally enfranchised in 212 , many Roman citizens would have lacked

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1992-401: A household or workplace, a hierarchy of slaves might exist, with one slave acting as the master of others. Talented slaves might accumulate a large enough peculium to justify their freedom, or be manumitted for services rendered. Manumission had become frequent enough that in 2 BC a law ( Lex Fufia Caninia ) limited the number of slaves an owner was allowed to free in his will. Following

2158-472: A knowledge of Latin. The wide use of Koine Greek was what enabled the spread of Christianity and reflects its role as the lingua franca of the Mediterranean during the time of the Empire. Following Diocletian's reforms in the 3rd century CE, there was a decline in the knowledge of Greek in the west. Spoken Latin later fragmented into the incipient romance languages in the 7th century CE following

2324-407: A law, especially when the "particular" law of one's own city was adverse to the case being made, not that there actually was such a law. Aristotle, moreover, considered certain candidates for a universally valid, natural law to be wrong. Aristotle's theoretical paternity of the natural law tradition is consequently disputed. Thomas Aquinas is the foremost classical proponent of natural theology , and

2490-511: A major law school . Ultimately, Manne established a center at George Mason , which became a center for the education of judges — many never previously exposed to the concepts of law and economics. Manne also attracted the support of the John M. Olin Foundation ; Olin centers (or programs) for Law and Economics now exist at many universities. Modern forerunners of economic thought developed at

2656-459: A man as an equestrian. The census of 28 BC uncovered large numbers of men who qualified, and in 14 AD, a thousand equestrians were registered at Cádiz and Padua alone. Equestrians rose through a military career track ( tres militiae ) to become highly placed prefects and procurators within the Imperial administration. The rise of provincial men to the senatorial and equestrian orders

2822-560: A married woman could have sex only with her husband, but a married man did not commit adultery if he had sex with a prostitute or person of marginalized status. Childbearing was encouraged: a woman who had given birth to three children was granted symbolic honours and greater legal freedom (the ius trium liberorum ). At the time of Augustus, as many as 35% of the people in Roman Italy were slaves, making Rome one of five historical "slave societies" in which slaves constituted at least

2988-468: A new theory of jurisprudence that has developed since the 1970s. The theory can generally be traced to American legal realism and is considered "the first movement in legal theory and legal scholarship in the United States to have espoused a committed Left political stance and perspective". It holds that the law is largely contradictory, and can be best analyzed as an expression of the policy goals of

3154-479: A norm. Joseph Raz's theory of legal positivism argues against the incorporation of moral values to explain law's validity. In Raz's 1979 book The Authority of Law , he criticised what he called the "weak social thesis" to explain law. He formulates the weak social thesis as "(a) Sometimes the identification of some laws turn on moral arguments, but also with, (b) In all legal systems the identification of some law turns on moral argument." Raz argues that law's authority

3320-428: A pivotal book on Hart (second edition published in 2008), which further refined and offered some important criticisms that led MacCormick to develop his own theory (the best example of which is his Institutions of Law , 2007). Other important critiques include those of Ronald Dworkin , John Finnis, and Joseph Raz . In recent years, debates on the nature of law have become increasingly fine-grained. One important debate

3486-503: A relationship desirable or feasible of very much cultivation." Harold Luhnow , the head of the Volker Fund , not only financed F. A. Hayek in the U.S. starting in 1946, but he shortly thereafter financed Aaron Director 's coming to the University of Chicago in order to set up there a new center for scholars in law and economics. The University was headed by Robert Maynard Hutchins , a close collaborator of Luhnow's in setting up

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3652-427: A sense of "Romanness". Roman society had multiple, overlapping social hierarchies . The civil war preceding Augustus caused upheaval, but did not effect an immediate redistribution of wealth and social power. From the perspective of the lower classes, a peak was merely added to the social pyramid. Personal relationships— patronage , friendship ( amicitia ), family , marriage —continued to influence politics. By

3818-513: A slave's rapist had to be prosecuted by the owner for property damage under the Aquilian Law . Slaves had no right to the form of legal marriage called conubium , but their unions were sometimes recognized. Technically, a slave could not own property, but a slave who conducted business might be given access to an individual fund ( peculium ) that he could use, depending on the degree of trust and co-operation between owner and slave. Within

3984-580: A sovereign, to whom people have a habit of obedience". H. L. A. Hart criticized Austin and Bentham's early legal positivism because the command theory failed to account for individual's compliance with the law. Hans Kelsen is considered one of the preeminent jurists of the 20th century and has been highly influential in Europe and Latin America, although less so in common law countries. His Pure Theory of Law describes law as "binding norms", while at

4150-422: A system of law, or to give it our respect. Thus, the law must have a morality that goes beyond the societal rules under which laws are made. Sophisticated positivist and natural law theories sometimes resemble each other and may have certain points in common. Identifying a particular theorist as a positivist or a natural law theorist sometimes involves matters of emphasis and degree, and the particular influences on

4316-532: A theory of ius gentium (law of nations), and thus is an important figure in the transition to modernity. He extrapolated his ideas of legitimate sovereign power to international affairs, concluding that such affairs ought to be determined by forms respecting of the rights of all and that the common good of the world should take precedence before the good of any single state. This meant that relations between states ought to pass from being justified by force to being justified by law and justice. Some scholars have upset

4482-415: A variety of directions. One important trend has been the application of game theory to legal problems. Other developments have been the incorporation of behavioral economics into economic analysis of law, and the increasing use of statistical and econometrics techniques. Within the legal academy, the term socio-economics has been applied to economic approaches that are self-consciously broader than

4648-503: Is efficiency , in particular, allocative efficiency . A common concept of efficiency used by law and economics scholars is Pareto efficiency . A legal rule is Pareto efficient if it could not be changed so as to make one person better off without making another person worse off. A weaker conception of efficiency is Kaldor–Hicks efficiency . A legal rule is Kaldor–Hicks efficient if it could be made Pareto efficient by some parties compensating others as to offset their loss. Nonetheless,

4814-417: Is the case. So analysing and clarifying the way the world is must be treated as a strictly separate question from normative and evaluative questions of what ought to be done. The most important questions of analytic jurisprudence are: "What are laws?"; "What is the law?"; "What is the relationship between law and power/sociology?"; and "What is the relationship between law and morality?" Legal positivism

4980-410: Is a necessary truth that there are vices that a legal system cannot possibly have (for example, it cannot commit rape or murder). Legal realism is the view that a theory of law should be descriptive and account for the reasons why judges decide cases as they do. Legal realism had some affinities with the sociology of law and sociological jurisprudence. The essential tenet of legal realism is that all law

5146-518: Is also concerned with normative theories of law. "Normative jurisprudence involves normative, evaluative, and otherwise prescriptive questions about the law." The English word is derived from the Latin, iurisprudentia . Iuris is the genitive form of ius meaning law, and prudentia meaning prudence (also: discretion, foresight, forethought, circumspection). It refers to the exercise of good judgment, common sense, and caution, especially in

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5312-545: Is an aspect of social mobility in the early Empire. Roman aristocracy was based on competition, and unlike later European nobility , a Roman family could not maintain its position merely through hereditary succession or having title to lands. Admission to the higher ordines brought distinction and privileges, but also responsibilities. In antiquity, a city depended on its leading citizens to fund public works, events, and services ( munera ). Maintaining one's rank required massive personal expenditures. Decurions were so vital for

5478-400: Is an unambiguous increase in allocative efficiency (for example, consolidation of research and development costs through increased mergers and acquisitions resulting from a systematic relaxation of antitrust laws) is, according to critics, fundamentally incorrect, as there is no general reason to conclude that an increase in allocative efficiency is more likely than a decrease. Essentially,

5644-415: Is based on "first principles": ... this is the first precept of the law, that good is to be done and promoted, and evil is to be avoided. All other precepts of the natural law are based on this ... The desires to live and to procreate are counted by Aquinas among those basic (natural) human values on which all other human values are based. Francisco de Vitoria was perhaps the first to develop

5810-496: Is commonly said that Hobbes's views on human nature were influenced by his times. The English Civil War and the Cromwellian dictatorship had taken place; and, in reacting to that, Hobbes felt that absolute authority vested in a monarch, whose subjects obeyed the law, was the basis of a civilized society. John Austin and Jeremy Bentham were early legal positivists who sought to provide a descriptive account of law that describes

5976-423: Is conceptually distinct from morality. While law might contain morality, the separability thesis states that "it is in no sense a necessary truth that laws reproduce or satisfy certain demands of morality, though in fact they have often done so." Legal positivists disagree about the extent of the separability thesis. Exclusive legal positivists, notably Joseph Raz , go further than the standard thesis and deny that it

6142-483: Is from this cultural movement that Justinian 's Corpus Juris Civilis was born. Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and was based on the first principles of natural law , civil law , and the law of nations . Natural law holds that there are rational objective limits to the power of rulers, the foundations of law are accessible through reason, and it is from these laws of nature that human laws gain force. The moral theory of natural law asserts that law

6308-525: Is identifiable purely through social sources, without reference to moral reasoning. This view he calls "the sources thesis". Raz suggests that any categorisation of rules beyond their role as authority is better left to sociology than to jurisprudence. Some philosophers used to contend that positivism was the theory that held that there was "no necessary connection" between law and morality; but influential contemporary positivists—including Joseph Raz, John Gardner , and Leslie Green —reject that view. Raz claims it

6474-445: Is inherent in nature and constitutive of morality, at least in part, and that an objective moral order, external to human legal systems, underlies natural law. On this view, while legislators can enact and even successfully enforce immoral laws, such laws are legally invalid. The view is captured by the maxim: " an unjust law is no law at all ", where 'unjust' means 'contrary to the natural law.' Natural law theory has medieval origins in

6640-423: Is made by humans and thus should account for reasons besides legal rules that led to a legal decision. There are two separate schools of legal realism: American legal realism and Scandinavian legal realism. American legal realism grew out of the writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes . At the start of Holmes's The Common Law , he claims that "[t]he life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience". This view

6806-552: Is possible for morality to be a part of law at all. The discretion thesis states that judges create new law when they are given discretion to adjudicate cases where existing law underdetermines the result. Hobbes was a social contractarian and believed that the law had peoples' tacit consent. He believed that society was formed from a state of nature to protect people from the state of war that would exist otherwise. In Leviathan , Hobbes argues that without an ordered society life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." It

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6972-471: Is the dominant theory, although there is a growing number of critics who offer their own interpretations. Historical jurisprudence came to prominence during the debate on the proposed codification of German law . In his book On the Vocation of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence , Friedrich Carl von Savigny argued that Germany did not have a legal language that would support codification because

7138-420: Is within legal positivism. One school is sometimes called "exclusive legal positivism" and is associated with the view that the legal validity of a norm can never depend on its moral correctness. A second school is labeled "inclusive legal positivism", a major proponent of which is Wil Waluchow, and is associated with the view that moral considerations may , but do not necessarily, determine the legal validity of

7304-554: The Nicomachean Ethics (Book IV of the Eudemian Ethics ). Aquinas's influence was such as to affect a number of early translations of these passages, though more recent translations render them more literally. Aristotle's theory of justice is bound up in his idea of the golden mean . Indeed, his treatment of what he calls "political justice" derives from his discussion of "the just" as a moral virtue derived as

7470-557: The Chicago School , as it became commonly known. The university faculty then included a strong base of libertarian scholars, including Frank Knight , George Stigler , Henry Simons , Ronald Coase and Jacob Viner . Soon, it would also have not just Hayek himself, but Director's brother-in-law and Stigler's friend Milton Friedman , and also Robert Fogel , Robert Lucas , Eugene Fama , Richard Posner , and Gary Becker . Historians Robert van Horn and Philip Mirowski described

7636-551: The Daoists , Confucians , and Legalists all had competing theories of jurisprudence. Jurisprudence in ancient Rome had its origins with the periti —experts in the jus mos maiorum (traditional law), a body of oral laws and customs. Praetors established a working body of laws by judging whether or not singular cases were capable of being prosecuted either by the edicta , the annual pronunciation of prosecutable offences, or in extraordinary situations, additions made to

7802-475: The Dominate . The emperor was the ultimate authority in policy- and decision-making, but in the early Principate, he was expected to be accessible and deal personally with official business and petitions. A bureaucracy formed around him only gradually. The Julio-Claudian emperors relied on an informal body of advisors that included not only senators and equestrians, but trusted slaves and freedmen. After Nero,

7968-592: The Ford administration . After retiring from the University of Chicago Law School in 1965, Director relocated to California and took a position at Stanford University's Hoover Institution . He died September 11, 2004, at his home in Los Altos Hills, California, ten days before his 103rd birthday. In the early 1970s, Henry Manne (a former student of Coase) set out to build a center for law and economics at

8134-764: The Greek East and Latin West . Constantine the Great ( r.  306–337 ), the first Christian emperor , moved the imperial seat from Rome to Byzantium in 330, and renamed it Constantinople . The Migration Period , involving large invasions by Germanic peoples and by the Huns of Attila , led to the decline of the Western Roman Empire . With the fall of Ravenna to the Germanic Herulians and

8300-586: The Nile Valley in Egypt. The empire completely circled the Mediterranean  ... referred to by its conquerors as mare nostrum —'our sea'. Trajan's successor Hadrian adopted a policy of maintaining rather than expanding the empire. Borders ( fines ) were marked, and the frontiers ( limites ) patrolled. The most heavily fortified borders were the most unstable. Hadrian's Wall , which separated

8466-482: The Republic , and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian 's assumption of effective sole rule in 27 BC. The western empire collapsed in 476 AD, but the eastern empire lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. By 100 BC, Rome had expanded its rule to most of the Mediterranean and beyond. However, it was severely destabilised by civil wars and political conflicts , which culminated in

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8632-645: The Romance languages while Medieval Greek became the language of the East. The Empire's adoption of Christianity resulted in the formation of medieval Christendom . Roman and Greek art had a profound impact on the Italian Renaissance . Rome's architectural tradition served as the basis for Romanesque , Renaissance and Neoclassical architecture , influencing Islamic architecture . The rediscovery of classical science and technology (which formed

8798-596: The Servile Wars of the Republic, legislation under Augustus and his successors shows a driving concern for controlling the threat of rebellions through limiting the size of work groups, and for hunting down fugitive slaves. Over time slaves gained increased legal protection, including the right to file complaints against their masters. A bill of sale might contain a clause stipulating that the slave could not be employed for prostitution, as prostitutes in ancient Rome were often slaves. The burgeoning trade in eunuchs in

8964-403: The critical legal studies movement, in particular Duncan Kennedy and Mark Kelman . Jon D. Hanson, of Harvard Law School , argues that our legal, economic, political, and social systems are unduly influenced by an individualistic model of behavior based on preferences , instead of a model that incorporates cognitive biases and social norms . Additional criticism has been directed toward

9130-569: The deposition of Romulus Augustus in 476 by Odoacer , the Western Empire finally collapsed. The Eastern Roman Empire survived for another millennium with Constantinople as its sole capital, until the city's fall in 1453. Due to the Empire's extent and endurance, its institutions and culture had a lasting influence on the development of language , religion , art , architecture , literature , philosophy , law , and forms of government across its territories. Latin evolved into

9296-423: The edicta . A iudex (originally a magistrate , later a private individual appointed to judge a specific case) would then prescribe a remedy according to the facts of the case. The sentences of the iudex were supposed to be simple interpretations of the traditional customs, but—apart from considering what traditional customs applied in each case—soon developed a more equitable interpretation, coherently adapting

9462-402: The neoclassical tradition. Property rights, which are analyzed using economic analysis, are seen as fundamental human rights by defenders of law and economics. Roman Empire The Roman Empire was the era of Roman civilisation lasting from 27 BC to 476 AD. Rome ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Romans conquered most of this during

9628-652: The victory of Octavian over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the subsequent conquest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt. In 27 BC, the Roman Senate granted Octavian overarching military power ( imperium ) and the new title of Augustus , marking his accession as the first Roman emperor . The vast Roman territories were organized into senatorial provinces, governed by proconsuls who were appointed by lot annually, and imperial provinces, which belonged to

9794-558: The "first-best" neoclassical analysis fails to properly account for various kinds of general-equilibrium feedback relationships that result from intrinsic Pareto imperfections. Another critique comes from the fact that there is no unique optimal result. Warren Samuels in his 2007 book, The Legal-Economic Nexus , argues, "efficiency in the Pareto sense cannot dispositively be applied to the definition and assignment of rights themselves, because efficiency requires an antecedent determination of

9960-420: The 18th century and was based on the first principles of natural law , civil law , and the law of nations . Contemporary philosophy of law addresses problems internal to law and legal systems and problems of law as a social institution that relates to the larger political and social context in which it exists. Jurisprudence can be divided into categories both by the type of question scholars seek to answer and by

10126-450: The 3rd century, the Empire underwent a 49-year crisis that threatened its existence due to civil war, plagues and barbarian invasions . The Gallic and Palmyrene empires broke away from the state and a series of short-lived emperors led the Empire, which was later reunified under Aurelian ( r.  270–275 ). The civil wars ended with the victory of Diocletian ( r.  284–305 ), who set up two different imperial courts in

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10292-621: The 600-member body by appointment. A senator's son belonged to the ordo senatorius , but he had to qualify on his own merits for admission to the Senate. A senator could be removed for violating moral standards. In the time of Nero, senators were still primarily from Italy , with some from the Iberian peninsula and southern France; men from the Greek-speaking provinces of the East began to be added under Vespasian. The first senator from

10458-400: The 6th and 7th centuries with the disintegration of the complex Imperial economy. Laws pertaining to slavery were "extremely intricate". Slaves were considered property and had no legal personhood . They could be subjected to forms of corporal punishment not normally exercised on citizens, sexual exploitation , torture, and summary execution . A slave could not as a matter of law be raped;

10624-529: The American legal realists of the early twentieth century, legal realism sought to describe the way judges decide cases. For legal realists such as Jerome Frank , judges start with the facts before them and then move to legal principles. Before legal realism, theories of jurisprudence turned this method around where judges were thought to begin with legal principles and then look to facts. It has become common today to identify Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., as

10790-457: The Augustan programme to restore traditional morality and social order, moral legislation attempted to regulate conduct as a means of promoting " family values ". Adultery was criminalized, and defined broadly as an illicit sex act ( stuprum ) between a male citizen and a married woman, or between a married woman and any man other than her husband. That is, a double standard was in place:

10956-468: The Chicago School include Adam Smith , David Ricardo , and Frédéric Bastiat . Founders include: Other notable individuals include: Economic analysis of law is usually divided into two subfields: positive and normative. 'Positive law and economics' uses economic analysis to predict the effects of various legal rules. So, for example, a positive economic analysis of tort law would predict

11122-459: The Dean of Harvard Law School , used this term to characterise his legal philosophy . In the United States, many later writers followed Pound's lead or developed distinctive approaches to sociological jurisprudence. In Australia, Julius Stone strongly defended and developed Pound's ideas. In the 1930s, a significant split between the sociological jurists and the American legal realists emerged. In

11288-524: The Empire was engulfed by the Crisis of the Third Century , a period of invasions , civil strife , economic disorder , and plague . In defining historical epochs , this crisis sometimes marks the transition from Classical to Late Antiquity . Aurelian ( r.  270–275 ) stabilised the empire militarily and Diocletian reorganised and restored much of it in 285. Diocletian's reign brought

11454-721: The German Historical school of economics ; this view is represented in the Elgar Companion to Law and Economics (2nd ed. 2005) and—though not exclusively—in the European Journal of Law and Economics . Here, consciously non-neoclassical approaches to economics are used for the analysis of legal (and administrative/governance) problems. Law and economics is closely related to jurimetrics , the application of probability and statistics to legal questions. The economic analysis of law has been influential in

11620-494: The Mediterranean, Italy maintained a special status which made it domina provinciarum ("ruler of the provinces"), and – especially in relation to the first centuries of imperial stability – rectrix mundi ("governor of the world") and omnium terrarum parens ("parent of all lands"). The 200 years that began with Augustus's rule is traditionally regarded as the Pax Romana ("Roman Peace"). The cohesion of

11786-612: The Middle East. The Latin phrase imperium sine fine ("empire without end" ) expressed the ideology that neither time nor space limited the Empire. In Virgil 's Aeneid , limitless empire is said to be granted to the Romans by Jupiter . This claim of universal dominion was renewed when the Empire came under Christian rule in the 4th century. In addition to annexing large regions, the Romans directly altered their geography, for example cutting down entire forests . Roman expansion

11952-454: The Rhine and Danube. Roman jurists also show a concern for local languages such as Punic , Gaulish , and Aramaic in assuring the correct understanding of laws and oaths. In Africa , Libyco-Berber and Punic were used in inscriptions into the 2nd century. In Syria , Palmyrene soldiers used their dialect of Aramaic for inscriptions, an exception to the rule that Latin was the language of

12118-448: The Roman world from what was perceived as an ever-present barbarian threat, is the primary surviving monument of this effort. Latin and Greek were the main languages of the Empire, but the Empire was deliberately multilingual. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill says "The main desire of the Roman government was to make itself understood". At the start of the Empire, knowledge of Greek was useful to pass as educated nobility and knowledge of Latin

12284-554: The United States as well as elsewhere. Judicial opinions use economic analysis and the theories of law and economics with some regularity, in the US but also, increasingly, in Commonwealth countries and in Europe. The influence of law and economics has also been felt in legal education, with graduate programs in the subject being offered in a number of countries. The influence of law and economics in civil law countries may be gauged from

12450-449: The account of his achievements ( Res Gestae ) prominently featured the geographical cataloguing of the Empire. Geography alongside meticulous written records were central concerns of Roman Imperial administration . The Empire reached its largest expanse under Trajan ( r.  98–117 ), encompassing 5 million km . The traditional population estimate of 55–60 million inhabitants accounted for between one-sixth and one-fourth of

12616-553: The assumed benefits of law and policy designed to increase allocative efficiency when such assumptions are modeled on "first-best" ( Pareto optimal ) general-equilibrium conditions. Under the theory of the second best , for example, if the fulfillment of a subset of optimal conditions cannot be met under any circumstances, it is incorrect to conclude that the fulfillment of any subset of optimal conditions will necessarily result in an increase in allocative efficiency. Consequently, any expression of public policy whose purported purpose

12782-598: The availability of textbooks of law and economics, in English as well as in other European languages (Schäfer and Ott 2004; Mackaay 2013). Many law schools in North America, Europe, and Asia have faculty members with a graduate degree in economics. In addition, many professional economists now study and write on the relationship between economics and legal doctrines. Anthony Kronman, former dean of Yale Law School, has written that "the intellectual movement that has had

12948-607: The basis for Islamic science ) in medieval Europe contributed to the Scientific Renaissance and Scientific Revolution . Many modern legal systems, such as the Napoleonic Code , descend from Roman law. Rome's republican institutions have influenced the Italian city-state republics of the medieval period, the early United States , and modern democratic republics . Rome had begun expanding shortly after

13114-411: The basis of being analogous to the laws of physical science. Natural law is often contrasted to positive law which asserts law as the product of human activity and human volition. Another approach to natural-law jurisprudence generally asserts that human law must be in response to compelling reasons for action. There are two readings of the natural-law jurisprudential stance. Aristotle is often said to be

13280-418: The collapse of the Empire's west. The dominance of Latin and Greek among the literate elite obscure the continuity of other spoken languages within the Empire. Latin, referred to in its spoken form as Vulgar Latin , gradually replaced Celtic and Italic languages . References to interpreters indicate the continuing use of local languages, particularly in Egypt with Coptic , and in military settings along

13446-482: The conditions of martyrdom . The three major elements of the Imperial state were the central government, the military, and the provincial government. The military established control of a territory through war, but after a city or people was brought under treaty, the mission turned to policing: protecting Roman citizens, agricultural fields, and religious sites. The Romans lacked sufficient manpower or resources to rule through force alone. Cooperation with local elites

13612-646: The conduct of practical matters. The word first appeared in written English in 1628, at a time when the word prudence meant knowledge of, or skill in, a matter. It may have entered English via the French jurisprudence , which appeared earlier. The terms "philosophy of law" and "jurisprudence" are often used interchangeably, though jurisprudence sometimes encompasses forms of reasoning that fit into economics or sociology . Ancient jurisprudence begins with various Dharmaśāstra texts of India. Dharmasutras of Āpastaṃba and Baudhāyana are examples. In Ancient China,

13778-466: The content of legal concepts using the methods of social science , analytical jurisprudence seeks to provide a general account of the nature of law through the tools of conceptual analysis . The account is general in the sense of targeting universal features of law that hold at all times and places. Analytic, or clarificatory , jurisprudence takes a neutral point of view and uses descriptive language when referring to various aspects of legal systems. This

13944-539: The deceased emperor's deification. The dominance of the emperor was based on the consolidation of powers from several republican offices. The emperor made himself the central religious authority as pontifex maximus , and centralized the right to declare war, ratify treaties, and negotiate with foreign leaders. While these functions were clearly defined during the Principate , the emperor's powers over time became less constitutional and more monarchical, culminating in

14110-501: The descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron", a comment which has led some historians, notably Edward Gibbon , to take Commodus' reign as the beginning of the Empire's decline . In 212, during the reign of Caracalla , Roman citizenship was granted to all freeborn inhabitants of the empire. The Severan dynasty was tumultuous; an emperor's reign was ended routinely by his murder or execution and, following its collapse,

14276-503: The development of modern economic concepts in "The Rise of the Chicago School of Economics", a chapter of The Road from Mont Pelerin (2009); and historian Bruce Caldwell (a great admirer of von Hayek) filled in more details of the account in his chapter, "The Chicago School, Hayek, and Neoliberalism", in Building Chicago Economics (2011). The field began with Gary Becker's 1968 paper on crime (Becker also received

14442-535: The diverse kinds of developing transnational law) and the increasingly important interrelations of law and culture, especially in multicultural Western societies. Legal positivism is the view that the content of law is dependent on social facts and that a legal system's existence is not constrained by morality. Within legal positivism, theorists agree that law's content is a product of social facts, but theorists disagree whether law's validity can be explained by incorporating moral values. Legal positivists who argue against

14608-575: The early Roman Empire to the 3rd century, a relevant body of literature was produced by groups of scholars, including the Proculians and Sabinians . The scientific nature of the studies was unprecedented in ancient times. After the 3rd century, juris prudentia became a more bureaucratic activity, with few notable authors. It was during the Eastern Roman Empire (5th century) that legal studies were once again undertaken in depth, and it

14774-472: The easternmost province, Cappadocia , was admitted under Marcus Aurelius. By the Severan dynasty (193–235), Italians made up less than half the Senate. During the 3rd century, domicile at Rome became impractical, and inscriptions attest to senators who were active in politics and munificence in their homeland ( patria ). Senators were the traditional governing class who rose through the cursus honorum ,

14940-567: The economic concept of utility as the basic unit of analysis. In 1985, in An Economic Theory of the Criminal Law , Posner set out an alternative approach that relied instead on wealth as the basic unit of analysis. As used by lawyers and legal scholars, the phrase "law and economics" refers to the application of microeconomic analysis to legal problems. Because of the overlap between legal systems and political systems, some of

15106-459: The effects of a strict liability rule as opposed to the effects of a negligence rule. Positive law and economics has also at times purported to explain the development of legal rules, for example the common law of torts, in terms of their economic efficiency. Normative law and economics goes one step further and makes policy recommendations based on the economic consequences of various policies. The key concept for normative economic analysis

15272-457: The emperor but were governed by legates . The first two centuries of the Empire saw a period of unprecedented stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana ( lit.   ' Roman Peace ' ). Rome reached its greatest territorial extent under Trajan ( r.  98–117 AD ), but a period of increasing trouble and decline began under Commodus ( r.  180–192 ). In

15438-481: The empire was furthered by a degree of social stability and economic prosperity that Rome had never before experienced. Uprisings in the provinces were infrequent and put down "mercilessly and swiftly". The success of Augustus in establishing principles of dynastic succession was limited by his outliving a number of talented potential heirs. The Julio-Claudian dynasty lasted for four more emperors— Tiberius , Caligula , Claudius , and Nero —before it yielded in 69 AD to

15604-462: The empire's most concerted effort against the perceived threat of Christianity , the " Great Persecution ". Diocletian divided the empire into four regions, each ruled by a separate tetrarch . Confident that he fixed the disorder plaguing Rome, he abdicated along with his co-emperor, but the Tetrarchy collapsed shortly after . Order was eventually restored by Constantine the Great , who became

15770-506: The empire. This legal egalitarianism required a far-reaching revision of existing laws that distinguished between citizens and non-citizens. Freeborn Roman women were considered citizens, but did not vote, hold political office, or serve in the military. A mother's citizen status determined that of her children, as indicated by the phrase ex duobus civibus Romanis natos ("children born of two Roman citizens"). A Roman woman kept her own family name ( nomen ) for life. Children most often took

15936-498: The empirical methods used by social scientists. Prominent Scandinavian legal realists are Alf Ross , Axel Hägerström , and Karl Olivecrona . Scandinavian legal realists also took a naturalist approach to law. Despite its decline in popularity, legal realism continues to influence a wide spectrum of jurisprudential schools today, including critical legal studies , feminist legal theory , critical race theory , sociology of law , and law and economics . Critical legal studies are

16102-631: The end of the Western Roman Empire in 476, when Romulus Augustulus was forced to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer . Odoacer ended the Western Empire by declaring Zeno sole emperor and placing himself as Zeno's nominal subordinate. In reality, Italy was ruled by Odoacer alone. The Eastern Roman Empire, called the Byzantine Empire by later historians, continued until the reign of Constantine XI Palaiologos ,

16268-504: The exploitation of slaves. Outside Italy, slaves were on average an estimated 10 to 20% of the population, sparse in Roman Egypt but more concentrated in some Greek areas. Expanding Roman ownership of arable land and industries affected preexisting practices of slavery in the provinces. Although slavery has often been regarded as waning in the 3rd and 4th centuries, it remained an integral part of Roman society until gradually ceasing in

16434-436: The extent allocative efficiency is the goal of the law. Cullerne Bown has criticised Posner's approach on methodological grounds. He concludes that Posner's approach to evaluating policies in the criminal process is methodologically invalid and that "these failings in turn make the entirety of his conclusions on the criminal process unreliable". Law and economics has adapted to some of these criticisms and been developed in

16600-476: The extent to which they are binding. Kelsen contends that the extent to which legal norms are binding, their specifically "legal" character, can be understood without tracing it ultimately to some suprahuman source such as God, personified Nature or—of great importance in his time—a personified State or Nation. In the English-speaking world, the most influential legal positivist of the twentieth century

16766-486: The father of natural law. Like his philosophical forefathers Socrates and Plato, Aristotle posited the existence of natural justice or natural right ( dikaion physikon , δικαίον φυσικόν , Latin ius naturale ). His association with natural law is largely due to how he was interpreted by Thomas Aquinas . This was based on Aquinas' conflation of natural law and natural right, the latter of which Aristotle posits in Book V of

16932-734: The father of the Thomistic school of philosophy, for a long time the primary philosophical approach of the Roman Catholic Church . The work for which he is best known is the Summa Theologiae . One of the thirty-five Doctors of the Church , he is considered by many Catholics to be the Church's greatest theologian. Consequently, many institutions of learning have been named after him. Aquinas distinguished four kinds of law: eternal, natural, divine, and human: Natural law

17098-457: The father's name, with some exceptions. Women could own property, enter contracts, and engage in business. Inscriptions throughout the Empire honour women as benefactors in funding public works, an indication they could hold considerable fortunes. The archaic manus marriage in which the woman was subject to her husband's authority was largely abandoned by the Imperial era, and a married woman retained ownership of any property she brought into

17264-435: The features of law shared across cultures, times, and places. Taken together, these foundational features of law offer the kind of universal definition philosophers are after. The general approach allows philosophers to ask questions about, for example, what separates law from morality, politics, or practical reason. While the field has traditionally focused on giving an account of law's nature, some scholars have begun to examine

17430-512: The fields of law and economics with far-reaching influence. In 1960 and 1961, Ronald Coase and Guido Calabresi independently published two groundbreaking articles, " The Problem of Social Cost " and "Some Thoughts on Risk Distribution and the Law of Torts". This can be seen as the starting point for the modern school of law and economics. In 1962, Aaron Director helped to found the Committee on

17596-640: The first emperor to convert to Christianity , and who established Constantinople as the new capital of the Eastern Empire. During the decades of the Constantinian and Valentinian dynasties, the empire was divided along an east–west axis, with dual power centres in Constantinople and Rome. Julian , who under the influence of his adviser Mardonius attempted to restore Classical Roman and Hellenistic religion , only briefly interrupted

17762-533: The founding of the Roman Republic in the 6th century BC, though not outside the Italian Peninsula until the 3rd century BC. Thus, it was an "empire" (a great power) long before it had an emperor. The Republic was not a nation-state in the modern sense, but a network of self-ruled towns (with varying degrees of independence from the Senate ) and provinces administered by military commanders. It

17928-456: The functioning of cities that in the later Empire, as the ranks of the town councils became depleted, those who had risen to the Senate were encouraged to return to their hometowns, in an effort to sustain civic life. In the later Empire, the dignitas ("worth, esteem") that attended on senatorial or equestrian rank was refined further with titles such as vir illustris ("illustrious man"). The appellation clarissimus (Greek lamprotatos )

18094-551: The governed to obey. Secondary rules are rules that confer authority to create new primary rules or modify existing ones. Secondary rules are divided into rules of adjudication (how to resolve legal disputes), rules of change (how laws are amended), and the rule of recognition (how laws are identified as valid). The validity of a legal system comes from the "rule of recognition", which is a customary practice of officials (especially barristers and judges) who identify certain acts and decisions as sources of law. In 1981, Neil MacCormick wrote

18260-600: The greatest influence on American academic law in the past quarter-century [of the 20th Century]" is law and economics. Despite its influence, the law and economics movement has been criticized from a number of directions. This is especially true of normative law and economics. Because most law and economics scholarship operates within a neoclassical framework, fundamental criticisms of neoclassical economics have been drawn from other, competing frameworks, though there are numerous internal critiques as well. Yet other schools of economic thought have emerged and have been applied to

18426-692: The historian Christopher Kelly described it: Then the empire stretched from Hadrian's Wall in drizzle-soaked northern England to the sun-baked banks of the Euphrates in Syria; from the great Rhine – Danube river system, which snaked across the fertile, flat lands of Europe from the Low Countries to the Black Sea , to the rich plains of the North African coast and the luxuriant gash of

18592-503: The honorary title imperator (commander); this is the origin of the word emperor , since this title was always bestowed to the early emperors. Rome suffered a long series of internal conflicts, conspiracies, and civil wars from the late second century BC (see Crisis of the Roman Republic ) while greatly extending its power beyond Italy. In 44 BC Julius Caesar was briefly perpetual dictator before being assassinated by

18758-531: The incorporation of moral values to explain law's validity are labeled exclusive (or hard) legal positivists. Joseph Raz's legal positivism is an example of exclusive legal positivism. Legal positivists who argue that law's validity can be explained by incorporating moral values are labeled inclusive (or soft) legal positivists. The legal positivist theories of H. L. A. Hart and Jules Coleman are examples of inclusive legal positivism. Legal positivism has traditionally been associated with three doctrines:

18924-403: The issues in law and economics are also raised in political economy , constitutional economics and political science . Approaches to the same issues from Marxist and critical theory / Frankfurt School perspectives usually do not identify themselves as "law and economics". For example, research by members of the critical legal studies movement and the sociology of law considers many of

19090-521: The last Roman emperor. He died in battle in 1453 against Mehmed II and his Ottoman forces during the siege of Constantinople . Mehmed II adopted the title of caesar in an attempt to claim a connection to the former Empire. His claim was soon recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople , but not by most European monarchs. The Roman Empire was one of the largest in history, with contiguous territories throughout Europe, North Africa, and

19256-592: The late 1st century prompted legislation that prohibited the castration of a slave against his will "for lust or gain". Roman slavery was not based on race . Generally, slaves in Italy were indigenous Italians, with a minority of foreigners (including both slaves and freedmen) estimated at 5% of the total in the capital at its peak, where their number was largest. Foreign slaves had higher mortality and lower birth rates than natives, and were sometimes even subjected to mass expulsions. The average recorded age at death for

19422-523: The law as it is. Austin explained the descriptive focus for legal positivism by saying, "The existence of law is one thing; its merit and demerit another. Whether it be or be not is one enquiry; whether it be or be not conformable to an assumed standard, is a different enquiry." For Austin and Bentham, a society is governed by a sovereign who has de facto authority. Through the sovereign's authority come laws, which for Austin and Bentham are commands backed by sanctions for non-compliance. Along with Hume, Bentham

19588-473: The law to newer social exigencies. The law was then adjusted with evolving institutiones (legal concepts), while remaining in the traditional mode. Praetors were replaced in the 3rd century BC by a laical body of prudentes . Admission to this body was conditional upon proof of competence or experience. Under the Roman Empire , schools of law were created, and practice of the law became more academic. From

19754-518: The main precursor of American Legal Realism (other influences include Roscoe Pound , Karl Llewellyn , and Justice Benjamin Cardozo ). Karl Llewellyn, another founder of the U.S. legal realism movement, similarly believed that the law is little more than putty in the hands of judges who are able to shape the outcome of cases based on their personal values or policy choices. The Scandinavian school of legal realism argued that law can be explained through

19920-486: The marriage. Technically she remained under her father's legal authority, even though she moved into her husband's home, but when her father died she became legally emancipated. This arrangement was a factor in the degree of independence Roman women enjoyed compared to many other cultures up to the modern period: although she had to answer to her father in legal matters, she was free of his direct scrutiny in daily life, and her husband had no legal power over her. Although it

20086-511: The mean between opposing vices, just like every other virtue he describes. His longest discussion of his theory of justice occurs in Nicomachean Ethics and begins by asking what sort of mean a just act is. He argues that the term "justice" actually refers to two different but related ideas: general justice and particular justice. When a person's actions toward others are completely virtuous in all matters, Aristotle calls them "just" in

20252-416: The members of the three higher "orders", along with certain military officers. The granting of universal citizenship in 212 seems to have increased the competitive urge among the upper classes to have their superiority affirmed, particularly within the justice system. Sentencing depended on the judgment of the presiding official as to the relative "worth" ( dignitas ) of the defendant: an honestior could pay

20418-730: The military. The last reference to Gaulish was between 560 and 575. The emergent Gallo-Romance languages would then be shaped by Gaulish. Proto-Basque or Aquitanian evolved with Latin loan words to modern Basque . The Thracian language , as were several now-extinct languages in Anatolia, are attested in Imperial-era inscriptions. The Empire was remarkably multicultural, with "astonishing cohesive capacity" to create shared identity while encompassing diverse peoples. Public monuments and communal spaces open to all—such as forums , amphitheatres , racetracks and baths —helped foster

20584-499: The morality enacted as law, not the laws themselves. The best evidence of Aristotle's having thought there was a natural law comes from the Rhetoric , where Aristotle notes that, aside from the "particular" laws that each people has set up for itself, there is a "common" law that is according to nature. The context of this remark, however, suggests only that Aristotle thought that it could be rhetorically advantageous to appeal to such

20750-424: The nature of domains within law, e.g. tort law, contract law, or criminal law. These scholars focus on what makes certain domains of law distinctive and how one domain differs from another. A particularly fecund area of research has been the distinction between tort law and criminal law, which more generally bears on the difference between civil and criminal law. In addition to analytic jurisprudence, legal philosophy

20916-527: The optimal outcome, providing the maximum size 'pie,' and to think about maximizing happiness instead of minimizing pain. We prefer another approach: We do not try to identify games that will lead to the optimal result but to prevent games in which it is in the best interests of the players to come to an unjust result". In 1968, Gary Becker, who would later win the Nobel prize for economics, published Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach . This work relied on

21082-464: The pedigree thesis, the separability thesis, and the discretion thesis. The pedigree thesis says that the right way to determine whether a directive is law is to look at the directive's source. The thesis claims that it is the fact that the directive was issued by the proper official within a legitimate government, for example, that determines the directive's legal validity—not the directive's moral or practical merits. The separability thesis states that law

21248-425: The philosophy of Thomas Aquinas , especially in his Treatise on law . In late 20th century, John Finnis revived interest in the theory and provided a modern reworking of it. For one, Finnis has argued that the maxim "an unjust law is no law at all" is a poor guide to the classical Thomist position. In its general sense, natural law theory may be compared to both state-of-nature law and general law understood on

21414-412: The political career track, but equestrians often possessed greater wealth and political power. Membership in the equestrian order was based on property; in Rome's early days, equites or knights had been distinguished by their ability to serve as mounted warriors, but cavalry service was a separate function in the Empire. A census valuation of 400,000 sesterces and three generations of free birth qualified

21580-507: The poor were other sources. Vernae , by contrast, were "homegrown" slaves born to female slaves within the household, estate or farm. Although they had no special legal status, an owner who mistreated or failed to care for his vernae faced social disapproval, as they were considered part of the family household and in some cases might actually be the children of free males in the family. Rome differed from Greek city-states in allowing freed slaves to become citizens; any future children of

21746-420: The possibility of a clear distinction between positive and normative analysis has been questioned by Guido Calabresi who, in his book on "The future of Law and Economics" (2016: 21-22), believes that there is an "actual - and unavoidable - existence of value judgments underlying much economic analysis" Uri Weiss proposed this alternative: "It is common in law and economics to search for the law that will lead to

21912-426: The post-1870 period. Francisco Suárez , regarded as among the greatest scholastics after Aquinas, subdivided the concept of ius gentium . Working with already well-formed categories, he carefully distinguished ius inter gentes from ius intra gentes . Ius inter gentes (which corresponds to modern international law) was something common to the majority of countries, although, being positive law, not natural law, it

22078-408: The rights (23–4)". Relatedly, legal scholarship also has criticized the movement for allowing its framing of models to dictate its results, for over-emphasizing or under-emphasizing specific incentives and costs, and for building models that do not degrade "gracefully" (and therefore have difficulty modeling reality). In other words, the law and economics movement may not achieve "efficiency", even to

22244-518: The same fundamental issues as does work labeled "law and economics", though from a vastly different perspective. The law and political economy movement also analyzes similar concepts using an entirely different approach. The one wing that represents a non-neoclassical approach to "law and economics" is the Continental (mainly German) tradition that sees the concept starting out of the governance and public policy ( Staatswissenschaften ) approach and

22410-461: The same time refusing to evaluate those norms. That is, "legal science" is to be separated from "legal politics". Central to the Pure Theory of Law is the notion of a ' basic norm ' ( Grundnorm )—a hypothetical norm, presupposed by the jurist, from which all "lower" norms in the hierarchy of a legal system , beginning with constitutional law , are understood to derive their authority or

22576-507: The second half of the twentieth century, sociological jurisprudence as a distinct movement declined as jurisprudence came more strongly under the influence of analytical legal philosophy; but with increasing criticism of dominant orientations of legal philosophy in English-speaking countries in the present century, it has attracted renewed interest. Increasingly, its contemporary focus is on providing theoretical resources for jurists to aid their understanding of new types of regulation (for example,

22742-399: The sense of "general justice"; as such, this idea of justice is more or less coextensive with virtue. "Particular" or "partial justice", by contrast, is the part of "general justice" or the individual virtue that is concerned with treating others equitably. Aristotle moves from this unqualified discussion of justice to a qualified view of political justice, by which he means something close to

22908-528: The slaves of the city of Rome was seventeen and a half years (17.2 for males; 17.9 for females). During the period of republican expansionism when slavery had become pervasive, war captives were a main source of slaves. The range of ethnicities among slaves to some extent reflected that of the armies Rome defeated in war, and the conquest of Greece brought a number of highly skilled and educated slaves. Slaves were also traded in markets and sometimes sold by pirates . Infant abandonment and self-enslavement among

23074-443: The standard account of the origins of International law, which emphasises the seminal text De iure belli ac pacis by Hugo Grotius , and argued for Vitoria and, later, Suárez's importance as forerunners and, potentially, founders of the field. Others, such as Koskenniemi, have argued that none of these humanist and scholastic thinkers can be understood to have founded international law in the modern sense, instead placing its origins in

23240-529: The strife-torn Year of the Four Emperors , from which Vespasian emerged as the victor. Vespasian became the founder of the brief Flavian dynasty , followed by the Nerva–Antonine dynasty which produced the " Five Good Emperors ": Nerva , Trajan , Hadrian , Antoninus Pius , and Marcus Aurelius . In the view of contemporary Greek historian Cassius Dio , the accession of Commodus in 180 marked

23406-410: The subject of modern jurisprudence. Of political justice, Aristotle argues that it is partly derived from nature and partly a matter of convention. This can be taken as a statement that is similar to the views of modern natural law theorists. But it must also be remembered that Aristotle is describing a view of morality, not a system of law, and therefore his remarks as to nature are about the grounding of

23572-461: The succession of Christian emperors. Theodosius I , the last emperor to rule over both East and West, died in 395 after making Christianity the state religion . The Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate in the early 5th century. The Romans fought off all invaders, most famously Attila , but the empire had assimilated so many Germanic peoples of dubious loyalty to Rome that the empire started to dismember itself. Most chronologies place

23738-452: The theories of jurisprudence, or schools of thought, regarding how those questions are best answered: The terms "philosophy of law" and "jurisprudence" are often used interchangeably, though jurisprudence sometimes encompasses forms of reasoning that fit into economics or sociology . Whereas lawyers are interested in what the law is on a specific issue in a specific jurisdiction, analytical philosophers of law are interested in identifying

23904-470: The theorist's work. The natural law theorists of the distant past, such as Aquinas and John Locke made no distinction between analytic and normative jurisprudence, while modern natural law theorists, such as John Finnis, who claim to be positivists, still argue that law is moral by nature. In his book Natural Law and Natural Rights (1980, 2011), John Finnis provides a restatement of natural law doctrine. Unlike experimental jurisprudence , which investigates

24070-562: The time of Nero , however, it was not unusual to find a former slave who was richer than a freeborn citizen, or an equestrian who exercised greater power than a senator. The blurring of the Republic's more rigid hierarchies led to increased social mobility , both upward and downward, to a greater extent than all other well-documented ancient societies. Women, freedmen, and slaves had opportunities to profit and exercise influence in ways previously less available to them. Social life, particularly for those whose personal resources were limited,

24236-466: The title Augustus ("venerated") and made him princeps ("foremost") with proconsular imperium , thus beginning the Principate , the first epoch of Roman imperial history. Although the republic stood in name, Augustus had all meaningful authority. During his 40-year rule, a new constitutional order emerged so that, upon his death, Tiberius would succeed him as the new de facto monarch. As Roman provinces were being established throughout

24402-566: The traditions, customs, and beliefs of the German people did not include a belief in a code. Historicists believe that law originates with society. An effort to systematically inform jurisprudence from sociological insights developed from the beginning of the twentieth century, as sociology began to establish itself as a distinct social science , especially in the United States and in continental Europe . In Germany, Austria and France ,

24568-463: The unintended consequences of legislation. However, to apply economics to analyze the law regulating nonmarket activities is relatively new. A European law & economics movement around 1900 did not have any lasting influence. In a 1917 article analyzing the study of law and economics in American universities, Eugene Allen Gilmore concluded, "the relation between law and economics seems either not to be perceived, or, if perceived, not to be regarded as

24734-400: The work of law and economics in, for example, the work of Edgardo Buscaglia and Robert Cooter in the book "Law and Economics of Development". Critics of the economic analysis of legal questions have argued that normative economic analysis does not capture the importance of human rights and concerns for distributive justice . Some of the heaviest criticisms of law and economics come from

24900-410: The work of the "free law" theorists (e.g. Ernst Fuchs, Hermann Kantorowicz , Eugen Ehrlich and François Gény ) encouraged the use of sociological insights in the development of legal and juristic theory. The most internationally influential advocacy for a "sociological jurisprudence" occurred in the United States, where, throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Roscoe Pound , for many years

25066-411: The world's total population and made it the most populous unified political entity in the West until the mid-19th century. Recent demographic studies have argued for a population peak from 70 million to more than 100 million . Each of the three largest cities in the Empire – Rome, Alexandria , and Antioch – was almost twice the size of any European city at the beginning of the 17th century. As

25232-514: Was H. L. A. Hart , professor of jurisprudence at Oxford University . Hart argued that the law should be understood as a system of social rules. In The Concept of Law , Hart rejected Kelsen's views that sanctions were essential to law and that a normative social phenomenon, like law, cannot be grounded in non-normative social facts. Hart claimed that law is the union of primary rules and secondary rules. Primary rules require individuals to act or not act in certain ways and create duties for

25398-414: Was a philosophical development that rejected natural law's fusing of what law is and what it ought to be. David Hume argued, in A Treatise of Human Nature , that people invariably slip from describing what the world is to asserting that we therefore ought to follow a particular course of action. But as a matter of pure logic, one cannot conclude that we ought to do something merely because something

25564-442: Was a point of pride to be a "one-man woman" ( univira ) who had married only once, there was little stigma attached to divorce , nor to speedy remarriage after being widowed or divorced. Girls had equal inheritance rights with boys if their father died without leaving a will. A mother's right to own and dispose of property, including setting the terms of her will, gave her enormous influence over her sons into adulthood. As part of

25730-488: Was a reaction to legal formalism that was popular the time due to the Christopher Columbus Langdell . Holmes's writings on jurisprudence also laid the foundations for the predictive theory of law. In his article "The Path of the Law", Holmes argues that "the object of [legal] study...is prediction, the prediction of the incidence of the public force through the instrumentality of the courts." For

25896-423: Was an early and staunch supporter of the utilitarian concept, and was an avid prison reformer, advocate for democracy , and firm atheist . Bentham's views about law and jurisprudence were popularized by his student John Austin . Austin was the first chair of law at the new University of London , from 1829. Austin's utilitarian answer to "what is law?" was that law is "commands, backed by threat of sanctions, from

26062-475: Was further defined by their citizenship. Most citizens held limited rights (such as the ius Latinum , "Latin right"), but were entitled to legal protections and privileges not enjoyed by non-citizens. Free people not considered citizens, but living within the Roman world, were peregrini , non-Romans. In 212, the Constitutio Antoniniana extended citizenship to all freeborn inhabitants of

26228-466: Was further fostered by a proliferation of voluntary associations and confraternities ( collegia and sodalitates ): professional and trade guilds, veterans' groups, religious sodalities, drinking and dining clubs, performing troupes, and burial societies . According to the jurist Gaius , the essential distinction in the Roman " law of persons " was that all humans were either free ( liberi ) or slaves ( servi ). The legal status of free persons

26394-405: Was governed by annually elected magistrates ( Roman consuls above all) in conjunction with the Senate. The 1st century BC was a time of political and military upheaval, which ultimately led to rule by emperors. The consuls' military power rested in the Roman legal concept of imperium , meaning "command" (typically in a military sense). Occasionally, successful consuls or generals were given

26560-495: Was mostly accomplished under the Republic , though parts of northern Europe were conquered in the 1st century, when Roman control in Europe, Africa, and Asia was strengthened. Under Augustus , a "global map of the known world" was displayed for the first time in public at Rome, coinciding with the creation of the most comprehensive political geography that survives from antiquity, the Geography of Strabo . When Augustus died,

26726-671: Was necessary to maintain order, collect information, and extract revenue. The Romans often exploited internal political divisions. Communities with demonstrated loyalty to Rome retained their own laws, could collect their own taxes locally, and in exceptional cases were exempt from Roman taxation. Legal privileges and relative independence incentivized compliance. Roman government was thus limited , but efficient in its use of available resources. The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with divinely sanctioned authority ( auctoritas ). The rite of apotheosis (also called consecratio ) signified

26892-416: Was never a legal requirement for Latin in the Empire, but it represented a certain status. High standards of Latin, Latinitas , started with the advent of Latin literature. Due to the flexible language policy of the Empire, a natural competition of language emerged that spurred Latinitas , to defend Latin against the stronger cultural influence of Greek. Over time Latin usage was used to project power and

27058-426: Was not itself an elected office in ancient Rome; an individual gained admission to the Senate after he had been elected to and served at least one term as an executive magistrate . A senator also had to meet a minimum property requirement of 1 million sestertii . Not all men who qualified for the ordo senatorius chose to take a Senate seat, which required legal domicile at Rome. Emperors often filled vacancies in

27224-487: Was not necessarily universal. On the other hand, ius intra gentes , or civil law, is specific to each nation. Writing after World War II , Lon L. Fuller defended a secular and procedural form of natural law. He emphasised that the (natural) law must meet certain formal requirements (such as being impartial and publicly knowable). To the extent that an institutional system of social control falls short of these requirements, Fuller argued, we are less inclined to recognise it as

27390-447: Was used to designate the dignitas of certain senators and their immediate family, including women. "Grades" of equestrian status proliferated. As the republican principle of citizens' equality under the law faded, the symbolic and social privileges of the upper classes led to an informal division of Roman society into those who had acquired greater honours ( honestiores ) and humbler folk ( humiliores ). In general, honestiores were

27556-476: Was useful for a career in the military, government, or law. Bilingual inscriptions indicate the everyday interpenetration of the two languages. Latin and Greek's mutual linguistic and cultural influence is a complex topic. Latin words incorporated into Greek were very common by the early imperial era, especially for military, administration, and trade and commerce matters. Greek grammar, literature, poetry and philosophy shaped Latin language and culture. There

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