The philosophy of customary law / James Bernard Murphy.

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2014]

K282 .M87 2014

9780199370627 (hardback ; alk. paper)
0199370621 (hardback ; alk. paper)

xv, 130 pages ; 25 cm

(OCoLC)858080995

"Although many modern philosophers of law describe custom as merely a minor source of law, formal law is actually only one source of the legal customs that govern us. Many laws grow out of custom, and one measure of a law's success is its creation of an enduring legal custom. Laws that fail to create customs fall into desuetude. Law is how custom regulates its own evolution. Yet custom and customary law have long been neglected topics in unsettled jurisprudential debate. Smaller concerns, such as whether customs can be legitimized by objective usage or by subjective endorsement, lead to broader questions of whether law and custom are mutually exclusive modes of social regulation, and whether rational reflection in general ought to replace sub-rational prejudice. Can legal rules function at all without customary usage? The Philosophy of Customary Law brings greater theoretical clarity to the often murky topic of custom by showing that custom must be analyzed through two more logically basic concepts: convention and habit. James Bernard Murphy explores the nature and significance of custom and customary law, and how conventions relate to habits in the four classic theories of Aristotle, Francisco Suárez, Jeremy Bentham, and James C. Carter. He establishes that customs are conventional habits and habitual conventions, and allows us to better grasp the many roles that custom plays in a legal system by offering a new foundation of understanding for these concepts"--Unedited summary from book jacket.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Purchased from the income of the Cardozo Fund