Lahore University of Management Sciences
Law 310 – Jurisprudence
Fall Semester 2016
Instructor
Room No.
Office Hours
Email
Telephone
Teaching Assistant
TA Office Hours
Course URL (if any)
Emad Ansari
1-24 SAHSOL Building
Vary by week (sign-ups for 15-minute slots on LMS course-site) or by appointment
[email protected]
Ext. 5609
Naima Qamar – [email protected]
By appointment
Course Basics
Credit Hours
Lecture(s)
Details
Four (4)
Nbr of Lec(s) Per Week 2
Tuesdays & Thursdays. 8 to 9.50 am.
Course Distribution
Course Type
Open for Student Category
Core
See section on Course Prerequisites
Duration
110 mins.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Jurisprudence is a theory-intensive course that examines what the law is, how it has been conceived as a theme, concept, and regime, and how
it regulates the concerns of citizens in a society. Our work this semester will explore, in particular, the complex and several relationships of the
law with morality, justice, society, authority, and with entrenched and marginalized groups in society. Accordingly, the first half of the course
will be devoted to core ideas of thinking about law, including natural, positive, and pure theories of law. In the second half of the course, we will
study theories intended to challenge and change the law to alter the position of the historically disadvantaged.
Please note that this syllabus, including readings, is subject to change. Please check the LMS course-site for an updated version.
COURSE PREREQUISITE(S)
Non-law students interested in taking the course should contact the instructor through the Law School administration. Students admitted to this
course by permission will ideally have had prior coursework in political or social theory, or demonstrated an interest in the law as a concept, if
not as a field of practice.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
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To familiarize participants in the course with the key concepts, themes and thinkers in the field of jurisprudence. For this purpose,
students are assigned a curated list of readings sourced from original texts, and not sourcebooks that provide the analysis for readers.
To become better skilled in understanding high-level theory, and to relate concepts across sectors, themes, and contexts.
To engage critically with theories of jurisprudence that challenge the dominant view of law and society, and to place these alongside
the core theories of jurisprudence; to reconcile the differences between different schools of thought about law; and to displace
binaries of thinking about what the law is and should be.
To interrogate conceptions of justice, morality, and the way law must engage with these essential elements as a concept and regime.
To practice and hone skills of articulation and organization in writing analyses of concepts of law.
Responsibilities of Participants. As participants in this course, you are required, first and foremost, to be on time to class; to have completed
the assigned reading before class; and to engage with the instructor and your classmates in discussion. The course is not designed as a series of
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lectures intended to inform you of the various ways of thinking about law, but is rather a critical engagement with classical and contemporary
theories of what the law is and could be. As a result, you will be actively called upon to voice your assessment of the readings and will be invited
to participate in discussion about the merits and demerits of various ideas. Your main responsibility is to work on presenting your thoughts in a
structured, coherent and confident manner. The instructor, in turn, is responsible for ensuring that the classroom atmosphere be conducive and
not intimidating for participants.
Learning Outcomes
Altogether, the course will provide us, the participants, with the vocabulary to articulate principles defenses, challenges, and propositions for
what role or functions the law must fulfill. The study of jurisprudence will also be, it must be stressed, a meditation on our own status as
individual subjects to and participants in the workings of the law in society.
Grading Breakup and Policy
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Quizzes (10%). You will be given four (4) multiple-choice quizzes over the course of the semester, of which the quiz in which you score
lowest will be dropped from consideration. These quizzes are designed to give you incentive to keep up with the readings, and to
gauge your progress in engaging with theoretical material.
Response Paper (15%). For the first assignment, you will be asked to critique a particular element, e.g. idea of authority or the
separation of morality with law, of a theorist featured in the first half of the course. Further guidelines will be provided in Week 6.
Final Paper (25%). A longer essay that requires you to draw from two critical theories, from the second half of the course, and one
core theory, from the first half of the course, to provide an interpretation to a particular legal problem or debate. Detailed guidelines
for this assignment will be provided in Week 12.
Exam (30%). Your final course requirement is an in-class exam, which will consist of several short-answer questions, and a longer essay
that draws on multiple themes from the course. These will be graded for analysis, articulation, and organization. Details and guidelines
will be provided closer to the examination date.
Participation (20%). Your participation grade will depend on various factors, including attendance, attentiveness, quality of comment
or other engagement, and diligence in submitting assignments on time.
Examination Detail
Midterm
Exam
Final Exam
Yes/No: No Midterm Exam
Yes/No: Yes
Combine Separate: Cumulative
Exam Specifications: The final course requirement is an in-class exam. Details are provided in the section on grading.
COURSE OVERVIEW
Week/
Lecture/
Module
Recommended
Readings
Topics
PART ONE: CORE THEMES
WEEK 1.
August 25,
2016
BEGINNINGS OF A DEFINITION OF LAW
WEEK 2.
August 30 &
NATURAL LAW
(1) Scott Shapiro, Excerpt from Legality (2011).
(2) Plato, “Crito,” in The Last Days of Socrates, transl. Hugh
Tredennick (2003).
(3) Martin Luther King, Jr., Excerpt from “Letter from Birmingham
Jail” (1963).
(1) Thomas Aquinas, “Passage 37: Law,” from Selected Philosophical
Readings, transl. Timothy McDermott (1993).
(2) John Finnis, Selection from Natural Law and Natural Rights (1980).
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September 1,
2016
WEEK 3.
September 6
& 8, 2016
(3) Lon L. Fuller, Selection from The Morality of Law (1964).
(4) Lon L. Fuller, “The Case of the Speluncean Explorers,” 112
Harvard Law Review 1851-1875 (1999).
PURE THEORY OF LAW
(1) Hans Kelsen, “The Pure Theory of Law and Analytical
Jurisprudence,” 55 Harvard Law Review 44-66 (1941).
(2) Hans Kelsen, Selected readings from Pure Theory of Law, transl.
Max Knight (1970).
(3) Joseph Raz, Excerpt from The Concept of a Legal System: An
Introduction to the Theory of Legal System, Second Ed. (1980).
[SCHEDULED HOLIDAYS: September 12-16, 2016]
WEEK 4.
September 20
& 22, 2016
WEEK 5.
September 27
& 29, 2016
WEEK 6.
October 4 &
6, 2016
WEEK 7.
October 11,
2016
WEEK 8.
October 18 &
20, 2016
LEGAL POSITIVISM
(1) Jeremy Bentham, Excerpt from An Introduction to the Principles
of Morals and Legislation (1996).
(2) Jeremy Bentham, Extract from “Of Laws in General,” from
Michael Freeman, ed. Lloyd’s Introduction to Jurisprudence, Ninth
Ed. (2014).
(3) John Austin, Selections from Lectures on Jurisprudence and the
Philosophy of Positive Law (1977).
(4) H.L.A. Hart, “Sovereign and Subject” in The Concept of Law,
Second Ed. (1997).
HART’S POSITIVISM
(1) H.L.A. Hart, Selected readings from The Concept of Law, Second
Ed. (1997).
(2) H.L.A. Hart, Excerpt from “Positivism and the Separation of Law
and Morals,” 71 Harvard Law Review 593 (1958).
(3) R.S. Summers, “Naïve Instrumentalism and the Law” in Law,
Morality, and Society: Essays in Honor of H.L.A. Hart, eds. P.M.S.
Hacker and J. Raz (1977).
(4) Lon L. Fuller, Selection from “Positivism and Fidelity to Law: A
Reply to Professor Hart,” 71 Harvard Law Review 630 (1958).
LAW AS EMPIRE
(1) Ronald Dworkin, Excerpt from “Is Law A System of Rules?” from R.
M. Dworkin, ed. The Philosophy of Law (1984).
(2) McLoughlin v. O’Brian, House of Lords (1983).
(3) Ronald Dworkin, Selected readings from Law’s Empire (1991).
LEGAL REALISM
(1) Oliver Wendell Holmes, “The Path of the Law”, from Julius J.
Marke, The Justice Holmes Reader (1955).
(2) Karl N. Llewyllyn, Selection from Jurisprudence: Realism in Theory
and Practice (1962).
LEGAL SYSTEM & AUTHORITY
(1) Joseph Raz, Selected readings from The Authority of Law: Essays
on Law and Morality (1979).
(2) Joseph Raz, Selected readings from The Concept of a Legal
System: An Introduction to the Theory of Legal System, Second
Ed. (1980).
(3) Scott Shapiro, Selected readings from Legality (2011).
PART TWO: JURISPRUDENTIAL CHALLENGES TO THE LAW
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WEEK 9.
October 25 &
27, 2016
ON LAW, MORALITY, AND JUSTICE
(1) Roscoe Pound, Excerpts from Law and Morals: The McNair
Lectures (1969).
(2) John Rawls, Excerpts from A Theory of Justice (1975).
LAW AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH
POWER AND THE STATE
(1) Duncan Kennedy, Excerpt from “Antonio Gramsci and the Legal
System,” ALSA Forum VI:1.
(2) Michel Foucault, Selection from “Society Must Be Defended”:
Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-76, transl. David Macey
(1976).
(3) Giorgio Agamben, Excerpts from “The Paradox of Sovereignty,” in
Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998).
LAW AND ECONOMIC CONTROL
(1) Richard Posner, Selected Readings from Economic Analysis of Law
(2014).
(2) Evgeny Pashukanis. Selection from Law and Marxism (2004), in
Michael Freeman, ed., Selection from Lloyd’s Introduction to
Jurisprudence, Ninth Ed. (2014).
THE FEMALE SUBJECT OF/TO THE LAW
(1) Martha Fineman, Selected Readings from The Vulnerable Subject:
Anchoring Equality in the Human Condition (2013).
(2) Catharine MacKinnon, “Difference and Dominance: On Sex
Discrimination," in Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology,
Ann E. Cudd, ed. (2005).
(3) Lucinda M. Finley, "Breaking Women's Silence in Law: The
Dilemma of the Gendered Nature of Legal Reasoning" (1989).
WEEK 13.
November 22
& 24, 2016
THE LAW, SLAVE OWNERSHIP, AND RACIAL
CONSEQUENCES
(1) José Marti, “A Town Sets a Black Man on Fire,” in José Marti:
Selected Writings, transl. E. Allen, 2002.
(2) Article 8, Constitution of the State of Texas, 1845, in The Laws of
Slavery in Texas: Historical Documents and Essays, ed. Randolph
B. Campbell (2010).
(3) Derrick Bell, Selection from Race, Racism and American Law
(1973).
WEEK 14.
November 29
& December
1, 2016
THE POSTCOLONY AND ITS LEGAL INHERITANCE
(1) Achille Mbembe, Selections from On the Postcolony (2001).
(2) Nasser Hussain, Selected Readings from The Jurisprudence of
Emergency: Colonialism and the Rule of Law (2003).
LAW IN THE SERVICE OF IMPERIALISM
(1) Selections from the ‘Torture Memos’ (2002).
(2) Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) Against Iraq
Resolution of 2002, U.S. Public Law 107-243 (Oct. 16, 2002).
(3) Judith Butler, Extract from Precarious Life: The Powers of
Mourning and Violence (2006).
WEEK 10.
November 1
& 3, 2016
WEEK 11.
November 8
& 10, 2016
WEEK 12.
November 15
& 17, 2016
WEEK 15.
December 6 &
8, 2016
WEEK 16.
December 15,
2016
REVIEW OF KEY THEMES FROM COURSE
Textbook(s)/Supplementary Readings
Coursepack is available from the Library in both print and electronic form.
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Other Guidance for the Course
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A serious scholars of the law and senior members of the Law School community, you are expected to abstain from plagiarism or cheating.
If you are suspected or found to be intellectually dishonest, you will be subject to appropriate disciplinary measures. You may also be failed
in the course. You are, accordingly, required to properly cite works referred and language borrowed from other sources. Further guidance
on the appropriate system of citation will be provided to you by the course facilitators closer to the deadline for your first paper.
I prefer that you take notes by hand rather than on your computers, since this is more conducive to discussion and class participation. You
may, however, use a laptop for taking notes if you disable the wireless function.
You are expected to produce writing work of a high standard. For this reason, you are encouraged to discuss your paper with the University
Writing Center and your TA. Note, however, that making use of these resources does not guarantee a high grade on the assignment.
Should you require special assistance because of a disability or other medical condition, or in case of an emergency, or are experiencing
problems due to bullying or other reasons, you are encouraged to discuss your circumstances with either myself or the TA. Any information
you provide us will remain confidential.
Please note, however, that extensions for papers or other assignments will not be granted except in very exceptional circumstances. You
will be informed of the deadlines well ahead of time and are expected to plan accordingly.
Finally, I encourage you to come to office hours to introduce yourself or to discuss ideas related to the theme of the course. I will open
office hour slots for sign up every week on LMS, and am excited to get to know each one of you this semester.
Updated: 18 Aug 2016