Contemporary Legal Philosophy: The Rediscovery of Practical Reason

Abstract

their bluntest form the doubts concern whether there is any more need for a philosophy of law than for a philosophy of bus-driving. Lawyers convey houses, and bus drivers convey people. Both will do it regardless of any philosophical fuss; law is what lawyers do and bus-driving is what bus drivers do; by all means inquire into the sociology of the bargain-driving and the bus-driving professionals, or of their impact (we hope not a literal impact) upon the surrounding community; by all means line them up in their respective places in the class-struggle (thereby securing a place in the pantheon of critical law or critical transport) but do not delude yourself that there is any useful or interesting job for philosophy in either case. There being philosophical precedent of the highest authority for confuting imaginary doubt through real meditation, let me at least imagine such a doubt as that adumbrated above and see if I can meditate it away. This may prove an effective method for achieving my present appointed task, namely to give a view - I shall not pretend to a thorough conspectus - of significant contemporary developments in the philosophy of law. My view acknowledges it as one essential task of legal philosophy to supply an epistemology of law, a theory, that is, as to the possibility of genuine knowledge in the legal sphere. But this is not the only task. Another, which grows out of the epistemological task, is to elucidate the nature and working of practical reason. Perhaps the most exciting development of the past decade or so has been in the rediscovery of practical reason, a recognition that general analyses of practical ireasoning, practical discourse or practical reasonableness have much to offer to our under