What is jurisprudence all about Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

What is jurisprudence all about - Essay Example He is a legal positivist because he considers laws to be disconnected from morality itself and more in line with a system of social guidelines which come with punishments for violations. Thus the viewpoint taken of jurisprudence by him is one of the analytical side where jurisprudence is taken as the philosophy which guides rules in a society that are in turn made into the laws of the society. In effect, Jurisprudence is based on primary rules which actually define acceptable and unacceptable conduct in a social system and secondary rules which tell law officials how to use the primary rules. There are further subdivisions of secondary rules which include the rules of adjudication, the rules of change, and the rules of recognition. In these, the rules of adjudication show ways in which the jurisprudence governs the resolution of legal disputes. The rules of change govern how laws can be altered while the rules of recognition allow rules to be considered valid or invalid. In terms of jurisprudence as it connects with the rules that form the laws in society, it can be debated if morality should be made a part of the equation and there are those who suggest that morality is an important element when it comes to making or altering laws. However, considering that Hart takes morality out of the equation, it could make jurisprudence more dynamic as the norms of society may change much faster than the moral standards of a given social order. Ronald Dworkin is perhaps more important of these two legal thinkers since his contributions to the field of law extend far beyond jurisprudence alone. He also works with the philosophy of law and political ideology debates where his opinions have been widely accepted and opposed as well (Burgess-Jackson, 1998). With regard to jurisprudence, his leading theory is the theory of integrity as it applies to the philosophy of law and the participants in the legal system. An understanding of this