Legal Pedigree

In this thesis, it is the author's aim to explain John Austin in adifferent way .As is well known that he pursued a pure legal disciplineand gave law a definite definition. However, in the author's opinion,perhaps it is more important to set Austin in his social and politicalbackground to get a whole image of his career. In his time, England wasin a special situation in history so that he was obliged to deal with theissues of law in a perspective different from that of ever philosophers oflaw. This is the core subject of the author's thesis.In order to show a clear framework to every reader, the authordivide her thesis into four parts and each part include three titles. In thefirst part the author will begin by outlining the special social andpolitical basic background of Austin's work. At that moment, as far asAustin concerned, he confronted with many important tasks includinghow to cope with legal tradition of his country, issues of legal educationand educating people through political science. It will then advance thethesis that these particular subjects must have a serious influence onAustin's academic writing and should lead to his specific treatment oflaw.This is the most important part to explore his legal philosophy. Inthis part the author will spare no effort to obtain the truth of hisclassification of the different sense of law. At first the author have todiscuss his answer to the question on what is the law, in another word,what is the object of the Jurisprudence. Then it is also necessary tounderstand the difference between the positive law and divine law,practical ethics, and metaphorical law, as well as the concept of positivelaw and authority.In the third part the author have to use his theory to deal with thereargumentative questions, which are "evil law is law?", "the order of theauthority was regarded as same as the order of robber?" and "the lawcan't restrict the authority?" In this process the author will give her own stand to these dispute so that the author can make preparation to arguefor Austin which is the main subject of the following fourth part.The fourth part is a part of the author's reevaluation of Austin'slegacy left for us. The author will have a thought that we must save thereal Austin from the numerous critics of his work. To some degree, hiscontribution to the legal theory which we should take seriously in Chinanowadays exists in the following aspects: firstly, we must reflect how tokeep a safe distance between pure law and politics; secondly, we mustpay much attention to how to educate the common people to obey thelaws not the contrary; last but not the least important, we lawyers mustlay more emphasis on the issue that how to keep our political ethics aslawyers.Through the whole contest we can find that Austin was never a manin the cage. Instead, he kept with the subject of the politics of his owntime. He was committed to the career of education of his nation. Peopleshould keep wise brains and lawyers should never agitate the crowds,which is the baseline of the lawyers. Perhaps what he had done is badlyneeded in our Jurisprudence at present for us. In a word, Austin had setus a brilliant example for us lawyers.