Philosophy and law are a natural match coz of the nature of what lawyers deal with involves argumentation, conceptual analysis, dealing with the type of problems philosophers traditionally dealt with.  Lawyers interpret texts, theories for interpretation, work out ways of reconciling client demands with what might appear highly technical and refined rules of law.  Lawyers deal with problem between law and morality.  As lawyers we’ll deal with issues that have also been dealt with by philosopher’s – some of their arguments are very powerful.

3 themes he wants to deal with – look at law through 3 different devices:

1. Legal reasoning:  how do lawyers reason – is there such a thing as legal logic – is there special way they justify judicial decisions – is there something special about how they justify their finding of fact.

2. Law and morality:  this is set piece debate amongst legal philosophers – Hart-Fuller debate looks on the way its been argued that laws that are entirely wicked or involve/permit gross violation of human rights should be treated as invalid.  How can this arise as a legal problem? = in German cases immediate aftermath of WWII there were prosecutions for what was thought to be crime but there was argument that they were only following Nazi orders which were law at the time.  Same issue arose after collapse of iron curtain/Berlin wall – could German border guards use same argument re the shoot to kill order if anyone crossed the wall.  In Aust it’s the argument in the case re the stolen children. 

3. How does law exist:  a lot of law theories and ways of looking at law don’t focus on texts but rather on what goes on around us.  For example, whether there is law or not law in Aust society is a general statement about society and the people in it and a general statement of what happens.
(once upon time the question ‘what is law’ would have been central theme - but that’s easily turned into meaningless question – how do you apply meaning of ‘law’ etc – he not interested in meaning of the word in specific sense therefore instead asks how does law exist)

These 3 things are ways of testing the theories we are looking at - eg if don’t understand by end of lecture ask the 3 questions, what does it tell me about the legal reasoning, law and morality or how law exists.