Philosophical problems concerning law fall within two broad areas: the fundamental nature of law, and how law may be evaluated. Analytical jurisprudence asks, what is a law, and how is it part of a system? How can a decision be made according to law, when the law is unclear? How is law like and unlike other social norms? How is it like or unlike moral standards?

Normative jurisprudence deals with the appraisal of law and moral issues that law generates. Human law can be made and changed by deliberate decision: what direction should those decisions take? Law claims authority to lay down rules and enforce them: are its claims warranted? Can we legitimately refuse to comply? Things are done in the name of the law which are not normally justifiable: people interfere in others' lives, they deprive others of goods, liberty, even life itself. How, if at all, can such practices be defended?

Analytical and normative questions concerning law are closely connected. The law speaks of rights and responsibility, duties and obligations, fairness, justice, and justification: does this mean that law inevitably contains or satisfies moral standards? Ideas about the essential nature of law have emphasized either its connections with, or else its separation from, morality: which view is right?

This book is an introduction to the philosophy of law. It seeks to explain such questions and to suggest how they may be answered. Meant for the non-specialist, it presupposes neither legal training nor formal study in philosophy. It does not attempt to survey the vast variety of ideas that people have had concerning the nature or appraisal of law.