The course will explore the philosophical foundations of law and its legitimacy. It will survey the primary traditions purporting to justify the authority of law. We will start by examining Aquinas' natural law theory and the social contract tradition: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. We will also examine contemporary social contract theorists such as Rawls and Nozick. This part of the course will examine the relevance of these theories to contemporary controversial debates. The course will also examine the critical approaches to the social contract tradition and to law in general. The last part of the course will be devoted to investigate different jurisprudential theories, in particular, the positivist and the natural law theory.

Note that this information may change at any time. Please visit the Student Link for the most up-to-date course information.