Research On Bentham's Thought Of Classification Of Law

In the long history of jurisprudence,the school of natural law is undoubtedly the oldest pearl.The traditional natural law school regards "rational rules" which surpass human beings as the reason for the formulation and obedience of law.The natural law school's understanding of law is centered on the concept of "natural law".They believe that there is a higher law on the basis of artificial law and that the law formulated by human beings must be based on "natural law".Representatives of various historical periods explained "what is law" from the perspectives of "logos","the will of God","the origin of law" and "natural rights".Grotius completed the transformation of natural law thought from "natural will of God" to "the freedom and equality of human beings".Natural jurists,such as Hobbes and Locke of later generations,inherited the pursuit of secular moral rationality and put forward the conception of contract theory and the theory of "natural human rights".In the era of Bentham,with great progress of natural science,rapid growth of social economy and various malpractices of the common law based on natural law,Bentham questioned the "natural law" and formed the perception of legal reform.Faced with the contradiction between common law and practical needs,Blackstone's attitude of being conservative,anti-legal reform and even using natural law to defend common law,aroused Bentham's fierce critics.Bentham examined Blackstone's "natural state,natural law and natural rights" from the perspective of empirical analysis,believing that it was full of unrealistic fiction and logical self-contradictions.At the same time,he criticized Blackstone's demonstration methods of natural law theory and common law tradition with the attitude of empirical analysis,believing that its vague and confused meanings in the use of concepts were kind of a guidance of "mistake",Bentham vividly called natural rights "children without fathers" for Blackstone's insistence on the innate,sacred and priority of rights while ignoring empirical factual arguments.The development of positivism laid the ideological foundation for Bentham to introduce positive science into legal research.Hume's proposition of "reality and ought" provided a powerful analytical tool for Bentham to distinguish the ought from the reality of law and to refute natural law.The utilitarian thought originating from Epicurus became the basis for Bentham to analyze human behaviors,to interpret the purpose of legislation and to clarify the content of law,and eventually formed the important ideological source of Bentham's thought of legal classification.The innovation of this paper lies mainly in the logical approach of Bentham's legal classification thought,which explains the achievements and significance of studying Bentham's legal classification thought.First of all,the premise of researching Bentham's thought of legal classification is to answer a question: what is the legal classification before Bentham and what is Bentham's attitude towards it? Elaborating the main viewpoints of the traditional natural law school on legal classification and Bentham's critics of Blackstone as a representative serves as the basis for Bentham's thought on legal classification.Secondly,the content of Bentham's thought of legal classification should be arranged according to the logical way of Bentham's thought of legal classification.Bentham first put forward the dichotomy between the actual law and the ought law,and then defined the actual law and the ought law.Thus,first,how Bentham put forward the macro-classification of the law as it is and the law as it ought to be through the "prompt" of Hume's puzzle should be introduced.Then how Bentham interpreted the law as it ought to be through utilitarian theory of human nature will be elaborated.Finally,how Bentham explained the law as it is through the classification method is elaborated.The study of the landmark figures in the history of the development of law should focus on their development and changes from a historical perspective.From the perspective of historical development,the significance of Bentham's thought of legal classification is embodied in its influence on Austin,Kelsen and Hart,the main figures of the later analytical school.Due to my cognitive limitations,many problems can not be explored in this paper in depth.Thus,this paper are supposed to be viewed as a starting point.