Legal Methods II: Legal Theory

This course provides an unavoidably selective introduction to major themes in legal theory. What sort of thing is law? Where does it come from, and how does it acquire the power to tell us what to do, to shape our lives, and even to end them? How is it related to other forms of social organization, such as politics, economics, and culture? Is it possible for judicial or popular interpretation to give an authoritative meaning to a legal principle, or is the meaning of principles always contested? There will be some attention to the ways these questions might bear on your other first-year classes.

Evaluation will be credit-fail, based on class participation (including active engagement with the assigned readings), and a set of response papers.