Jurisprudence The Final Honour School ofJurisprudence is also the formal name ofthe undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree inLaw awarded by the Universityof Oxford Philosophers of law ask "what is law?" and "what should it be?" Jurisprudence is the theory and philo- sophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal philosophers, hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institu- tions. As jurisprudence has developed, there are three main aspects with which scholarly writing engages: • is the idea that there are unchangeable laws of nature which govern us, and that our laws and institutions should try to align with this natural law. • asks questions distinctive to legal philosophy like, "What is law?" "What are the criteria for legal validity?" or "What is the relationship between law and morality?" and other such questions that legal philosophers may engage. • asks what law ought to be. It is close to political philosophy, and includes questions of whether one ought to obey the law, on what grounds law-breakers might properly be punished, the proper uses and limits of regulation, how judges ought to decide cases. Modern jurisprudenc e and philosoph y of law is dominated today primarily by Western aca- demics. The ideas of the Western legal tradi- tion hav e bec ome so per vas ive thr oug hou t the world that it is tempting to see them as univer sal. Histo ricall y, howev er, many philo - sophers from other traditions have discussed the same quest ions, from Islami c scho lars to the ancient Greeks. Etymology The English term is based on the Latin word jurisprudentia: juris is the genitive form ofjus meaning "l aw", and prudentia means "knowledge". The wor d is firs t attested in English in 1628 [1] , at a time when the word prudence had the now obsolete meaning of"knowledge of or skill in a matter". The word may have come via the Frenchjurisprudence, which is attested earlier. History of jurisprudence Jurisprudence alre ady had thi s meaning in Ancient Rome , even if at its origins the dis- cipline was a monopoly of the Colleg e ofPontiffs ( Pontifex), which retai ned an exclu s- ive power of jud gme nt on fac ts, being the only experts (periti) in the jus oftraditional law (mos maiorum, a body of oral laws and customs ver bal ly transmitted "by father to son"). Pontif fs ind irectl y created a bod y oflaws by their pronunciations (sententiae) on single concrete (judicial) cases. Their sent en ces we re supposed to be simple interpretations of the traditional cus- toms, but effectively it was an activity that, apart from for mal ly recons idering for eac h case what precisely was traditionally in the legal habi ts , soon tu rned al so to a more equitative interpretation, coherently adapting the law to the newer social instances. The law was then implemented with new evolut- ive Institutiones (lega l conc epts) , while re- main ing in the traditional scheme. Pon tif fs were replaced in 3rd century BC by a laical bod y ofprudentes. Admission to this bod y From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jurisprudence 1
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