The Relevance of Coercion: Some Preliminaries

27 Pages Posted: 7 May 2009 Last revised: 21 Jul 2009

See all articles by Nicos Stavropoulos

Nicos Stavropoulos

University of Oxford - Faculty of Law

Date Written: May 6, 2009

Abstract

Many philosophers take the view that, while coercion is a prominent and enduring feature of legal practice, its existence does not reflect a deep, constitutive property of law and therefore coercion plays at best a very limited role in the explanation of law's nature. This view has become more or less the orthodoxy in modern jurisprudence. I argue that an interesting and plausible possible role for coercion in the explanation of law is untouched by the arguments in support of the orthodox view. Since my main purpose is to clear the ground for the alternative, I spell out the orthodox view in some detail. I then briefly sketch the alternative. Finally, I turn to Jules Coleman's discussion of the alternative.

Keywords: law, coercion, obligation

Suggested Citation

Stavropoulos, Nicos, The Relevance of Coercion: Some Preliminaries (May 6, 2009). Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 19/2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1400422 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1400422

Nicos Stavropoulos (Contact Author)

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