Critical Perspectives on Law

Abstract

Although there is a sense in which the whole of legal theory must be critical if it is to be valuable, this chapter takes a very specific sense of the term critical in order to group together, albeit loosely, three perspectives on law and legal theory which proceed from bases other than those which underpin the traditional analysis into the positivist and natural law traditions. They may be labelled Marxism, critical legal studies and feminism. We shall consider each in turn, but before doing so it is important to realize that they are by no means watertight compartments.