Scope of Jurisprudence

Scope of Jurisprudence

                   There is no unanimity of opinion regarding the scope of jurisprudence. Different authorities attribute different meanings and varying premises to law and that causes difference opinions with regard to the exact limit of the field covered by jurisprudence . Jurisprudence has been so defined as to cover moral and religious precepts also and that has created confusion . It goes to the credit to Austin that he distinguished law from morality and theology and restricted the term to the body of the rules set and enforced by the sovereign or supreme law making authority within the realm. Thus the scope of jurisprudence was limited to the study of the concepts of positive law and ethics and theology fall outside the province of jurisprudence.

        There is tendency to widen the scope of jurisprudence and at the present we include what was previously considered to be beyond the provinces of jurisprudence.  The present view is that scope of jurisprudence can not be circumcised or regimented. It includes all concepts of of human order and human conduct in state ans society. Anything that concerns order in the state and society falls under the domain jurisprudence. P.B. Mukharji writes that new jurisprudence is " both intellectual  and idealistic abstraction as well as behavioristic study of man in society. It includes political , social, economic and cultural ideas. It covers the study of man in relation to the state and society."

               Thurman W. Arnold defines jurisprudence " as the shining but unfulfilled dream of a world governed by reason . For some , it lies buried in a system , the details of which they do not know. for some, familiar with the details of the system, it lies in the depth of an unreal literature . for others , familiar with its literature , it lies in the hope of a future enlightenment. for all , it is just around the corner "


  The view of lord radcliffe is that jurisprudence is a part of history , a part of economics and sociology, a part of ethics and a philosophy of life.

Karl Llewellyn observes -
                  " Jurisprudence as big as law-and bigger".


Relations of Jurisprudence with other Social Sciences-

1) Jurisprudence &Sociology

2) Jurisprudence & Psychology

3) Jurisprudence & Ethics 

4) Jurisprudence & Economics 

5) Jurisprudence & History

6) Jurisprudence & Politics