Scope of Jurisprudence

Scope of  Jurisprudence

      There is no  unanimity of the opinion regarding the scope of jurisprudence . Different authorities attribute different meaning and varying premises to law and that causes difference opinions with regard to the exact limits of the field covered by jurisprudence.  Jurisprudence has been so define as to cover moral and religious precepts also and that has created confusion. It goes to the credit of Austin that he distinguished law from morality and theology and restricted them to the body of 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 concept of positive law and ethics and theology fall outside the province of jurisprudence .

                 There is a tendency to widen the scope of jurisprudence and at present we include what was previously considered to be beyond the province of jurisprudence . The present view is that the scope of jurisprudence cannot be circumscribed regimented. It includes all concepts of human order and human conduct in state and Society . Anything that concerns order  in the state and Society falls under the domain of jurisprudence.
     

         P.B. Mukherjee writes that new jurisprudence is " both an intellectual and idealistic as abstraction as well as behaviouristic study of man in society. it includes political, social, economic and cultural ideas. It covers the society  of man in relation to 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 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 just around the corner".

       The view of Lord Radcliffe is that Jurisprudence is a part of history a part of economic and Sociology, a part of ethics and physiology of life .

Karl Llewellyn observes: " jurisprudence as a big as law- and bigger".