Module POL2098 for 2020/1
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
POL2098: What is Law? Jurisprudence from Stone Tablet to Brain Imaging
This module descriptor refers to the 2020/1 academic year.
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover the following topics in chronological order:
- Introduction
- Divine and Natural Law
- Legal Formalism
- Legal Realism
- The Concept of Law
- Law’s Empire
- Jurisprudence and the Brain
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 | 0 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | 22 | 11 x 2 hour seminars |
| Guided Independent Study | 44 | Preparing for Seminar - Reading and Research |
| Guided Independent Study | 84 | Completing assessment tasks - Reading, Research and Writing |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
Basic reading:
Lon Fuller's “The Case of the Speluncean Explorers”
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
Moses, Exodus 19-24
L.W. King “Code of Hammurabi”
Wing-Tsit Chan “The Natural Way of Lao Tzu”
Benjamin Hoff “The Tao of Pooh”
Ernest Weinrib (1988) “Legal Formalism: On the Immanent Rationality of Law”
Karl Llewellyn “A Realistic Jurisprudence – The Next Step”
H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law
Ronald Dworkin, Law’s Empire
Daniel Dennett Freedom Evolves, Chapters 1 & 2
Jeffery Rosen, “The Brain on the Stand” NY Times
Micheal Gazzaniga and Megan Steven, “Free Will in the 21st Century”
Jonathan Fugelsang and Keven Dunbar “A cognitive neuroscience framework for the understanding of causal reasoning and the law”
Eyal Aharoni et al. (2013) “Neuroprediction of future rearrest”
Iris Vilaresa et al. (2017) Predicting the knowledge–recklessness distinction in the human brain
Morris Hoffman “The neuroeconomic path of the law”
Joshua Greene and Jonathan Cohen “For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything”
Stephen Morse, “New Neuroscience, Old Problems”
Patricia Smith Churchland “A review of The Ethical Brain by Michael Gazzaniga”
Patricia Smith Churchland “Moral Decision-Making and the Brain”
Oliver Goodenough and Kristin Prehn “A neuroscientific approach to normative judgment in law and justice”
Oliver Goodenough “Responsibility and punishment: whose mind? A response”
