Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence is a rather interesting subject to teach as part of a law degree. I fear that universities either teach it right and teach it well; or, teach it wrong and teach it disastrously. The disconcerting thing about my course is that there are elements of both!

The most interesting aspects of the course are when you read the works of the leading jurists: Hart, Dworkin, Raz etc. Once you get to grip with the basics, I for one found, that its actually quite enjoyable to read their complexly written works and try to distill what they are trying to say. There's no doubt about it though: there have been several occasions when I've spent ages reading a particular part of one of the aforementioned jurist's works and I'm just amazed as to why they don't opt for simplicity - especially when they were making some interesting and valid points - and, I believe, had they done so, they would have dramatically increased their readership.

So that was the interesting part of the course that was taught reasonably well. My essay marks in that area averaged around 65% which measured up quite well against the other marks in my year. There were only a handful of Firsts awarded and two-fist-fulls of 65%>70% marks.

Now for the uninteresting part.

Principally, this involves having to study jurisprudential issues in very specific areas: Moral Dilemmas in Medical Law; Foucauldian theory; and, feminist perspectives on jurisprudence.

Now, some of the issues in each of these subjects are interesting - especially in moral dilemmas in medical law, where it was nice to have recourse back to original judgments in cases in which these issues have arisen alongside the jurisprudential writings on them. The other two areas I have mentioned have not been so interesting. I quickly tuned-out of the feminist perspectives on the law because it was just so dry. I am definitely one that enjoys reading and studying black-letter law more, but I like to think that my analytical skills can be used elsewhere too. Like, for instance, on the works of Dworkin and Hart, which I did enjoy. But, for Feminist perspectives on Jurisprudence, nothing was happening for me.

Foucauldian theory is an interesting option to offer in itself and I am quite surprised at its inclusion. Michel Foucault of course was a French philosopher that died relatively recently. His works on the inter-relationship of power, knowledge and truth, was not limited to understanding a legal system or the law itself. No, it was much broader - it focussed on a whole range of things in life. We don't even hone in on the application of Foucault's work and what will be of interest to us as lawyers. And, it seems to me that all his views can be summarised in some nice and short statements that I simply have to regurgitate in an exam. I'm really less keen on going on to read his primary texts in full and am more likely, and not because of fault on my part - I gave him his chance, to rely on easy secondary texts where its all nicely laid out for me.

It seems therefore that unless my perspective changes, I have set a ceiling rising only to a mid upper-second class level. This, for a subject that I enjoy a lot and have performed well in up until know.

Thank you Foucault and thank you Feminists!