H. L. A. Hart – författare

An updated and extended second edition supporting the findings of its well-known predecessor which claimed that courts employ common-sense notions of causation in determining legal responsibility.

In his introduction Professor Hart offers both an exposition and a critical assesment of some central issues in jurisprudence and political theory. Essay themes include Bentham''s identification of the forms of mistification protecting the law from criticism, his relation to Beccaria and his conversion to democratic radicalism.

This classic collection of essays, first published in 1968, has had an enduring impact on academic and public debates about criminal responsibility and criminal punishment. Forty years on, its arguments are as powerful as ever. H.L.A. Hart offers an alternative to retributive thinking about criminal punishment that nevertheless preserves the central distinction between guilt and innocence. He also provides an account of criminal responsibility that links the distinction between guilt and innocence closely to the ideal of the rule of law, and thereby attempts to by-pass unnerving debates about free will and determinism. Always engaged with live issues of law and public policy, Hart makes difficult philosophical puzzles accessible and immediate to a wide range of readers.For this new edition, otherwise a reproduction of the original, John Gardner adds an introduction engaging critically with Hart''s arguments, and explaining the continuing importance of Hart''s ideas in spite of the intervening revival of retributive thinking in both academic and policy circles.Unavailable for ten years, the new edition of Punishment and Responsibility makes available again the central text in the field for a new generation of academics, students and professionals engaged in criminal justice and penal policy.

This classic collection of essays, first published in 1968, has had an enduring impact on academic and public debates about criminal responsibility and criminal punishment. Forty years on, its arguments are as powerful as ever. H.L.A. Hart offers an alternative to retributive thinking about criminal punishment that nevertheless preserves the central distinction between guilt and innocence. He also provides an account of criminal responsibility that links the distinction between guilt and innocence closely to the ideal of the rule of law, and thereby attempts to by-pass unnerving debates about free will and determinism. Always engaged with live issues of law and public policy, Hart makes difficult philosophical puzzles accessible and immediate to a wide range of readers.For this new edition, otherwise a reproduction of the original, John Gardner adds an introduction engaging critically with Hart''s arguments, and explaining the continuing importance of Hart''s ideas in spite of the intervening revival of retributive thinking in both academic and policy circles.Unavailable for ten years, the new edition of Punishment and Responsibility makes available again the central text in the field for a new generation of academics, students and professionals engaged in criminal justice and penal policy.

In the two related works in this volume, Bentham offers a detailed critique of William Blackstone''s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-9). In ''Comment on the Commentaries'', on which Bentham began work in 1774, he exposes the fallacies which he claims to have detected in Blackstone, and criticizes the theory of the Common Law. He goes on to provide important reflections on the nature of law, and more particularly on the nature of customary and of statute law, and on judicial interpretation.A Fragment on Government, which was published in 1776, was detached from the ''Comment on the Commentaries''. Concentrating on a passage of five or six pages in which Blackstone discusses the origin of society and government, Bentham offers three main criticisms. First, he criticizes Blackstone''s methodology for failing to distinguish between the role of the expositor and the role of the censor, and thereby confusing the question of what the law is with the question of what the law ought to be. Second, he criticizes Blackstone''s assumption that the theory of the social contract represents an adequate justification of the obligation to obey government. Third, he criticizes Blackstone''s theory of sovereignty, which claims that in every state there must exist some absolute, undivided power, whose commands are law. Bentham points to the existence of states where sovereign power is both divided and limited.In these two works, published by OUP for the first time, Bentham outlines a number of themes which he goes on to develop in his later works: the principle of utility; the importance of a ''natural arrangement'' for a legal system; the point at which resistance to government becomes justifiable; the exposition of legal terms; and much more.The volume also contains Bentham''s ''Preface'' intended for, but not published in, the second edition of A Fragment on Government, which appeared in 1823. Having by this committed himself to political radicalism, Bentham uses this occasion to reflect on the text and the circumstances in which it was produced.The text has been edited by H.L.A. Hart and J.H. Burns, whose reputations in their respective fields of legal theory and history of political thought are unsurpassed. The volume contains an Editorial Introduction which explains the provenance of the text, and the method of presentation. The texts are fully annotated with textual and historical notes, and the volume is completed with a detailed subject index, based on a methodology devised by Hart.

The new critical edition of the works and correspondence of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) is being prepared and published under the supervision of the Bentham Committee of University College London. In spite of his importance as jurist, philosopher, and social scientist, and leader of the Utilitarian reformers, the only previous edition of his works was a poorly edited and incomplete one brought out within a decade or so of his death. Eight volumes of the new Collected Works, five of correspondence, and three of writings on jurisprudence, appeared between 1968 and 1981, published by the Athlone Press. Further volumes in the series since then are published by Oxford University Press. The overall plan and principles of the edition are set out in the General Preface to The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 1, which was the first volume of the Collected Works to be published.An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Jeremy Bentham's best-known work, is a classic text in modern philosophy and jurisprudence. First published in 1789, it contains the important statement of the foundations of utilitarian philosophy and a pioneering study of crime and punishment, both of which remain at the heart of contemporary debates in moral and political philosophy, economics, and legal theory. Printed here in full is the definitive edition, edited by the distinguished scholars J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart. An introductory essay by Hart, first published in 1982 and a widely acknowledged classic in its own right, is reprinted here. It contains an important analysis of Bentham's principle of utility, theory of action, and an account of the relationship between law and morality.A new introduction by the leading Bentham scholar F. Rosen, specially written for this Clarendon Paperback edition, provides students with a helpful survey of Bentham's main ideas and an extensive bibliographical study of recent critical work on Bentham. Professor Rosen's essay also contains a new analysis of the principle of utility in Bentham's philosophy which is compared with its use in Hume and J. S. Mill.

In his introduction to these closely linked essays Professor Hart offers both an exposition and a critical assessment of some central issues in jurisprudence and political theory. Some of the essays touch on themes to which little attention has been paid, such as Bentham's identification of the forms of mysitification protecting the law from criticism; his relation to Beccaria; and his conversion to democratic radicalism and a passionate admiration for the United States.

These essays, which cover a wide range of topics, were written by Professor Hart between 1953 and 1981, and first appeared in a variety of different books and journals.

In his introduction to these closely linked essays Professor Hart offers both an exposition and a critical assesment of some central issues in jurisprudence and political theory. Some of the essays touch on themes to which little attention has been paid, such as Bentham's identification of the forms of mistification protecting the law from criticism; his relation to Beccaria; and his conversion to democratic radicalism and a passionate admiration for the United States.

An updated and extended second edition supporting the findings of its well-known predecessor which claimed that courts employ common-sense notions of causation in determining legal responsibility.

This incisive book deals with the use of the criminal law to enforce morality, in particular sexual morality, a subject of particular interest and importance since the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957.Professor Hart first considers John Stuart Mill's famous declaration: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community is to prevent harm to others." During the last hundred years this doctrine has twice been sharply challenged by two great lawyers: Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, the great Victorian judge and historian of the common law, and Lord Devlin, who both argue that the use of the criminal law to enforce morality is justified.The author examines their arguments in some detail, and sets out to demonstrate that they fail to recognize distinction of vital importance for legal and political theory, and that they espouse a conception of the function of legal punishment that few would now share.