Jurisprudence
Citation: 14 J.L. & Soc 'y 303 1987 Content downloaded/printed from HeinOnline (http://heinonline.org) Fri Mar 15 14:57:04 2013 -- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance of HeinOnline 's Terms and Conditions of the license agreement available at http://heinonline.org/HOL/License -- The search text of this PDF is generated from uncorrected OCR text. -- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope of your HeinOnline license, please use: https://www.copyright.com/ccc/basicSearch.do? &operation=go&searchType=0 &lastSearch=simple&all=on&titleOrStdNo=0263-323X
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY VOLUME 14,NUMBER 3. AUTUMN 1987
0263-323X $3.00.
Natural Law Theory and Legal Positivism: Two Sides of the Same Practical Coin?
TIM KAYE* INTRODUCTION In their article "The Practical Difference between Natural-Law Theory and Legal Positivism", ' Deryck Beyleveld and Roger Brownsword have maintained that if the continuing debate between legal positivists and natural lawyers is ever to get beyond misrepresentation and abuse, jurisprudence must develop a "theory of legal ideology". 2 Only when such a theory has been developed, they claim, shall we be in a position to know "how legal rhetoric 3 arises and affects these [thoughts and acts]". As an interested observer, rather than someone actively involved in the dispute between legal positivism and natural law, 4 I view this call from two of the debate 's major protagonists as a very welcome development for three reasons. First, jurisprudence has too often been limited in its discussion of important issues by a tendency towards exclusively abstract argument, so that:
... are left at the end not with a blueprint for legal and political action, for (any] we conclusions are too vague for any real value choices, but with hints, no more, of how to better ourselves and the communities within which we live. '
It is high time jurisprudes began to explore the dialectic between theory and practice.
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY VOLUME 14,NUMBER 3. AUTUMN 1987
0263-323X $3.00.
Natural Law Theory and Legal Positivism: Two Sides of the Same Practical Coin?
TIM KAYE* INTRODUCTION In their article "The Practical Difference between Natural-Law Theory and Legal Positivism", ' Deryck Beyleveld and Roger Brownsword have maintained that if the continuing debate between legal positivists and natural lawyers is ever to get beyond misrepresentation and abuse, jurisprudence must develop a "theory of legal ideology". 2 Only when such a theory has been developed, they claim, shall we be in a position to know "how legal rhetoric 3 arises and affects these [thoughts and acts]". As an interested observer, rather than someone actively involved in the dispute between legal positivism and natural law, 4 I view this call from two of the debate 's major protagonists as a very welcome development for three reasons. First, jurisprudence has too often been limited in its discussion of important issues by a tendency towards exclusively abstract argument, so that:
... are left at the end not with a blueprint for legal and political action, for (any] we conclusions are too vague for any real value choices, but with hints, no more, of how to better ourselves and the communities within which we live. '
It is high time jurisprudes began to explore the dialectic between theory and practice.
References: 8 (1985) 5 OxfordJ