Principles of Law A Normative Analysis

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For the important enterprise of ordering, sifting, and making the law understandable to the philosophically inclined student, Bayles' book is a major - indeed, encyclopedic - contribution. It represents a large amount of extremely competent work.
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Conrad D. Johnson, University of Maryland




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Principles of Law is one of the few books since Oliver Wendell Holmes' The Common Law to address philosophical issues at a level between the general conditions for any legal system and specific issues such as punishment or strict liability. It asks what normative principles a rational person in a contemporary common l aw society would want judges to use in deciding cases. Principles are then developed for procedural, property, contract, tort, and criminal law. The adversary model of adjudication is shown to place an important constraint on acceptable principles. ... Several features make this book a valuablesupplement for law school and other students. Chapters have a similar structure, proceeding from aims to remedies. Seventeen to 20 principles are provided for each field, and well-known American and English cases are cited. Technical legal terms are explained when introduced. The discussion is both more theoretical and concise than in many supplements.