Jurisprudence, Co-Sponsored by Torts and Compensation System

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The Jurisprudence Section gathers this year to celebrate a distinctive kind of legal philosophy: “specific jurisprudence.” The more familiar term, “general jurisprudence,” refers to theories of the nature of law, such as those associated with John Austin or H.L.A. Hart. By “specific jurisprudence,” we refer to philosophical theories that aim to interpret and offer an organizing account of a particular department of law (a theory of criminal law, for example). We will have two panels on this subject. The first will examine the power and difficulties of specific jurisprudence, its curious balance of normative and descriptive content, its relationship to political philosophy and social theory outside of law, and related issues at the foundation of the genre. The second will examine and celebrate a forthcoming book on the theory of tort law that exemplifies the ideals of specific jurisprudence: John Goldberg’s and Benjamin Zipursky’s “Recognizing Wrongs.”