A Short Background On Jurisprudence
The law is a structure set down to help control society and every individual in it. Without laws we would have chaos. The law has many facets, the court system, judges, attorneys, and the police department. There are also areas of the law that many people don’t know about.
As the world changes and society grows, some of the older laws seem to be obsolete. Should these laws still apply to the ever changing structure of the society?
Among the more modern laws that have cropped up due to our modern society are the following: should two men or two women be allowed to legally marry and have the same rights by law as heterosexual couples? Should a terminally ill patient be able to choose to end their suffering?
To truly understand the laws we should have some type of understanding of the philosophical discipline that helps us develop laws called jurisprudence.
There are two parts to jurisprudence, Analytical and Normative. Normative jurisprudence is the moral foundation of law, the reason we punish. That of what is morally expected of each individual in the society we live in today.
Do we as humans have the right to kill another human under the law and can we be punished under the law for doing so? Normative jurisprudence deals with this part of the law.
Analytical jurisprudence deals with the law as it is and all that it entails. It studies the various legal systems in place and determines what the law is and what a rule is. What is the difference between law and rule and why they are categorized as such?
Morality is not a concern of Analytical jurisprudence, its’ concern is analyzing the law systems that are in place already.