Philosophy of Right

Socrates waits in prison with an escape plan ready and argues that he must stay and obey the laws that condemned him. Our own Project Aldus edition of the first great dialogue on obedience to the law.

Plato

Plato's longest dialogue designs the legal code of a new city, from marriage and property to crime and the role of the gods. Jowett's translation includes a full introduction and analysis of each book.

Plato

Kant's theory of right, the first part of the Metaphysics of Morals, covering property, contract, punishment and the authority of the state. It grounds law in freedom rather than in happiness or utility.

Immanuel Kant

The founding text of utilitarian legal theory, where Bentham sets out the principle of utility and applies it to offences, punishment and the design of laws. A book that still frames debates on legislation.

Jeremy Bentham

Maine follows law from primitive codes and Roman law to modern society and coins the famous movement from status to contract. A founding work of historical jurisprudence.

Henry Sumner Maine