Session 1 - Part 1, Chapter 1 – What Is Law? Flashcards
Exploring Law: Concepts, Theories, and Divisions
Corrective Justice
A theory of justice focused on rectifying harm through compensation, emphasizing individual responsibility.
Critical Legal Studies
An approach questioning law’s objectivity, highlighting its role in maintaining power structures.
Critical Race Theory
Examines how law perpetuates racial inequality and advocates for racial justice.
Deontological
An ethical framework emphasizing the inherent rightness or wrongness of actions, regardless of consequences.
Distributive Justice
Concerned with fair allocation of resources and benefits in society.
Instrumentalist
Views something like justice or the law as a means to achieve a desired end.
Legal Positivism
Defines law as human-made rules created through recognized processes, separate from morality.
Legal Realism
Emphasizes empirical study of lawmaking and application, acknowledging human influences.
Marxist Theories of Law
Analyze law through a socioeconomic lens, critiquing its role in capitalist systems.
Natural Law
A higher law based on reason, morality, or divine will, believed to supersede human-made laws.
Positive Law
Human-made laws enacted by recognized authorities.
Practice Norms
Ethical standards and legal skills expected of legal practitioners.
Procedural Law
Rules governing the process of enforcing rights and obligations.
Public Law
Law concerning the relationship between the state and individuals, including constitutional and criminal law.
Retributive Justice
Focuses on punishment as a response to wrongdoing.
Rule of Law
A principle emphasizing fair and consistent application of law, limiting arbitrary power.
Substantive Law
Law defining rights, duties, and obligations.
What are the three main types of rules that make up a legal system?
General norms/standards: Prohibit activities like theft or speeding. Condition rules: Establish requirements, like needing a license to drive. Power-conferring rules: Allow individuals to define legal relationships, like in contracts.
difference between a descriptive and a normative perspective of morality.
Descriptive morality: Observing what a community considers right or wrong without judgment. Normative morality: Accepting a moral code as objectively true and a guide for behavior.
Explain the concept of corrective justice
Corrective justice: The belief that individuals are morally responsible for harm they cause and must rectify it, typically through compensation. Example: A person who damages another’s property must pay for repairs.
What is the law of retaliation (lex talionis), and how does it relate to the concept of retributive justice?
Lex talionis: “An eye for an eye” principle, advocating proportional response to wrongdoing. It underpins retributive justice, which focuses on punishment as a response to crime.
Briefly explain John Rawls’s general conception of justice.
Rawls’s conception: Social goods like liberty, opportunity, and wealth should be distributed equally unless inequality benefits everyone.
What are three key principles of the rule of law as described by AV Dicey?
Dicey’s rule of law: Law trumps arbitrary power, everyone is equal under the law, and courts protect rights/liberties by providing remedies.
