Elucidating Law

What are the aims of legal philosophy? Which questions should it seek to address? How should legal philosophers approach and engage with their subject-matter, and what constraints are incumbent on them as they do so? What are the criteria of success of theories of law, and how do we know if they have been met? Can there be progress in legal philosophy?

In Elucidating Law, Julie Dickson addresses these and other questions concerning the methodology, or the philosophy, of legal philosophy and offers her own distinctive response to them. The book advocates that legal philosophers should espouse an approach that Dickson terms 'Indirectly Evaluative Legal Philosophy.' This distinctive approach can facilitate legal philosophers' understanding of aspects of the nature of law, whilst avoiding prematurely or inappropriately regarding law as inherently morally valuable. Law is a powerful, systemic, and institutionalized social tool. It should be understood in a manner appropriate to its character.

Julie Dickson is Professor of Legal Philosophy in the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, and Fellow and Tutor in Law at Somerville College, Oxford. After completing an undergraduate law degree at the University of Glasgow in her native Scotland, and a D. Phil in Philosophy of Law at Balliol
College, Oxford, she held lectureships at the University of Leicester and University College London before taking up her current post. Professor Dickson works mainly in general jurisprudence or philosophy of law, and especially on methodological issues such as the criteria of success of legal
philosophy.