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Jurisprudence · Unit 3

Schools of Jurisprudence

Unit 3 of Jurisprudence / Legal Theory (syllabus: Module III — the natural law school and its history; legal positivism — Bentham, Austin, Hart and Kelsen; law and morality and the Indian concept of Dharma; the historical school — Savigny, Puchta and Maine; the sociological school and Roscoe Pound’s social engineering; the realist schools, American and Scandinavian; and feminist legal theory). Below: what the unit covers, the provisions it turns on, and the cases an examiner expects you to name.

What this unit covers

  • State the basic tenets of the natural law school.
  • What did Grotius contribute to the natural law tradition?
  • Explain Kelsen's pure theory of law and the grundnorm.
  • Explain Hart's theory of primary and secondary rules.
  • Distinguish Fuller's internal from his external morality of law.
  • State Savigny's theory and the criticisms of the historical school.
  • Explain Duguit's theory of social solidarity.
  • Explain Pound's theory of social engineering and his classification of interests.
  • State the basic tenets of the realist school, American and Scandinavian.
  • State the central claim of feminist jurisprudence and its four strands.

Treat that list as a self-test: recite each topic's rule from memory before you open its cases.

Leading cases

Exam questions on this unit

In this paper