MacCormick on MacCormick

Abstract

Neil MacCormick reflects on the seven big themes of his legal and political theory: the normative character of the legal order, the institutional character of the legal order, the central but far from exclusive role played by state law in social integration, the relationship between law and morality, the synthetic and systemic aspects of law, and the relationship between reasons and emotions in practical reasoning. In reviewing these themes, this chapter both paints an overarching broad-brush picture of MacCormick’s theory, and reveals the intricate connections and links between the different parts, thus providing a very appealing introduction to the broad range of readers that will be inspired by his work

Note from the editors: This chapter contains the transcription of the paper that Neil presented at the 2007 workshop at the Bergen Faculty of Law where most of the papers included in this book were first discussed. We have made minor editorial changes, to accommodate the speech to the written form, without tampering with the flow of Nei’s discourse (or at least that is what we strived for and hope).