1) History of legal philosophy
2) Contemporary philosophy of law
3) Ethics and biolaw
4) Feminist theories and law
5) Law and literature
Some of the new challenges in contemporary legal philosophy relate
to the impact that information technology and biotechnology
are having on both law and rights. Of central concern under the
first heading is the question of the relation between law and
morals, and under the second heading that of whether we should
expand the classes of rights-holders or extend the basic menu of
rights, or both.
The reflection that women have devoted
to law over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st
century has brought to light the need to question the traditional
legal concepts based on equality and reframe the issues in
terms of gender, class, race, cultural, and
religious differences, especially among women. Here the
intersection between feminist theory and the law develops into
an effort to construct an ethics of care and responsibility
recognizing the specific ways in which women approach moral
problems — an approach that may serve as a useful basis on which
to arrive at judicial decisions and design public
policy.
Finally, the revival of Law and Literature has contributed
significantly to disciplines like the philosophy, sociology,
and history of law. There are two main ways in which this coupling
of law and literature can be worked out: we have law IN
literature and law AS literature. The first of these two
perspectives involves a literary exploration of law; the
second offers a way to observe law and literature in action.
