Law's Boundaries
42 Pages Posted: 18 Nov 2016
Date Written: November 15, 2016
Abstract
What counts as law? What sources qualify as legitimate inputs to legal argument and legal decision-making? In this article, written as an invited contribution to the Harvard Law Review’s symposium issue commemorating the Harvard law School’s 200th anniversary, I use these questions to track one central strand of 200 years of jurisprudence. The analysis is episodic more than comprehensive, and the episodes are all ones with some connection, at times close and at times loose, to the Harvard Law School. But the basic theme of what counts as a valid legal source and thus of what counts as law also provides insights into two centuries of debate about the nature of law and the nature of jurisprudential inquiry.
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