LE 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Legal Positivism, Legal Realism, Consistency
21 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
Laws: rules of conduct spread and enforced by the government. Jurisprudence: a philosophical approach to the study of law. Legal realism: legal philosophy that says judges decide cases based on other factors instead of logic: example: preexisting rules, sociological and economic factors. Originalism: an approach to constitutional interpretation that narrowly interprets the text of the constitution in a manner that is consistent with what most people understood those words to mean at the time they were written. Evolutionary approach: approach to constitutional interpretation in which judges seek to determine the underlying purpose that the drafters has in mind when they wrote laws and the current version. Constitutional law: body of principles and rules either explicitly stated in, or inferred from the us constitution and or federal courts. Confederation: form of gov"t in which independent units form an alliance but retain their independent power, having a limited say in what the central authority does.
