Importance Of Jurisprudence

What is jurisprudence?

One definition of jurisprudence is ‘’the philosophy of law, or the science which treats of the principles of positive law and legal relations’’.

According to the above statement jurisprudence is simply the study of the fundamental nature of law or analysing the basis of man-made law and how they relate to one another. The study of jurisprudence can be said to be the analysing of man-made laws or positive laws.

Jurisprudence focuses on determining the problems with man-made laws and seeks to find a solution that will be socially acceptable.

There are 2 major types of problems that jurisprudence tries to deal with:

1) Problems internal to law and legal systems.

2) Problems of law as a particular social institution

By analysing these clashing moral views judges are able to find out the root of the disagreement and use that knowledge to help try solve the problem. This is effective as we can learn from analysing the problems that have occurred in the past.

However the events that took place in history shape law and morality, so when looking to define either one, one must look to history and the philosophers who argued about law and morality.

Formalist’s point of view

Formalists take law as a math or science, they acquire data and have a systematically way of reaching a theory. Example a judge identifies a legal principle that is relevant to the case, and find a solution that will govern the outcome of the situation.

 However looking at law as a math or science constricts its usage as in mathematics a formula is only limited to a specific problem while looking at law from a realism point of view opens up the scope of law and allows one principle to be applied in different

The judge must base his decision on reasonableness rather than on a mathematical formula. This is because the formula may not incorporate the human element and it may fail to incorporate some elements that might be vital in deciding the outcome of the case.

CONCLUSION

While analysing jurisprudence and using historical jurisprudence to help solve a problem, one must not only look at one point of view to the problem.

However he must look at the opinions of multiple philosophers so as to come to a conclusion after looking at different opinions.

For example a judge can not only look at a formalist’s point of view but he must even look at the realist point of view so as to be able to tackle the problem he faces in a mathematical sense and in a sense or balancing the interests of the parties as the realists believe.

In short law is an entity that cannot be quantified and is wide in nature, therefore while analysing it or referring to its principles one must be able to look at law from his/her point of view as well as from the historical and philosophical point of