Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I KARL LLEWELLYN AND THE COURSE OF PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICAN LAW
- PART II PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LAW
- PART III AREAS OF PHILOSOPHY AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO LAW
- 12 On Philosophy in American Law: Analytical Legal Philosophy
- 13 Political Philosophy and Prosecutorial Power
- 14 On (Moral) Philosophy and American Legal Scholarship
- 15 The Aretaic Turn in American Philosophy of Law
- 16 On Continental Philosophy in American Jurisprudence
- 17 Psychoanalysis as the Jurisprudence of Freedom
- PART IV PHILOSOPHICAL EXAMINATIONS OF LEGAL ISSUES
- PART V LAW, RHETORIC, AND PRACTICE THEORY
- PART VI QUESTIONING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND AMERICAN LAW
- PART VII COMMENTARIES
- Contributors and Selected Bibliography
- Name Index
- References
13 - Political Philosophy and Prosecutorial Power
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I KARL LLEWELLYN AND THE COURSE OF PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICAN LAW
- PART II PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LAW
- PART III AREAS OF PHILOSOPHY AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO LAW
- 12 On Philosophy in American Law: Analytical Legal Philosophy
- 13 Political Philosophy and Prosecutorial Power
- 14 On (Moral) Philosophy and American Legal Scholarship
- 15 The Aretaic Turn in American Philosophy of Law
- 16 On Continental Philosophy in American Jurisprudence
- 17 Psychoanalysis as the Jurisprudence of Freedom
- PART IV PHILOSOPHICAL EXAMINATIONS OF LEGAL ISSUES
- PART V LAW, RHETORIC, AND PRACTICE THEORY
- PART VI QUESTIONING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND AMERICAN LAW
- PART VII COMMENTARIES
- Contributors and Selected Bibliography
- Name Index
- References
Summary
Much recent scholarship has been animated by the desire to understand the limits of law and how law figures its own limits. It has charted the gaps, fissures, and incompleteness of legality in a society whose political rhetoric stresses the depth and strength of our commitment to the rule of law. This work is enlivened and enriched when it is rooted in, or informed by, the perspectives of political philosophy.
Karl Llewellyn (1934: 205) was correct in identifying ways philosophy shapes legal action and noting that “[p]hilosophers' writings and law-men's doings meet rarely on the same level of discourse, and part of the game is to find out where they do, where they do not, and – if you can – the why of either.” However, the relevance of philosophical perspectives to law was, and is, broader than Llewellyn acknowledged. His invitation to examine what he variously called “philosophy-in-action” or “implicit philosophy” so as to identify the “implicit” and “unthought” premises of legal action pointed to that broader relevance even if he did not himself pursue it (Llewellyn 1934: 206). In what follows we take up Llewellyn's invitation, using political philosophy to cast new light on the work of one kind of “law man” – prosecutors – and, in so doing, to chart another domain of what Sarat and Hussain (2004: 1311) have called “lawful lawlessness.”
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- Information
- On Philosophy in American Law , pp. 106 - 113Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009