The Gift of Science: Leibniz and the Modern Legal Tradition

Moving from the scientific revolution to the 19th-century rise of legal codes, Berkowitz tells the story of how lawyers and philosophers invented legal science to preserve law’s claim to moral authority. He finds that the subordination of law to science actually transformed law from an ethical order into a tool for social and economic ends.

Table of Contents:
Contents Preface Note on Terminology Introduction: Legal Codification, Positive Law, and the Question of Science From Insight to Science: Leibniz’s Scientific Foundation of Justice 1 Beyond Geometry: Leibniz and the Science of Law 2 The Force of Law: Will 3 Leibniz’s Systema Iuris II The Allgemeines Landrecht: From Recht to Gesetz 4 From the Gesetzbuch to the Landrecht: The ALR and the Triumph of Legality 5 The Rule of Law: The Crown Prince Lectures and the Grounding of Legality in Order and Security III From Science to Technique: Friedrich Carl von Savigny, the BGB, and the Self-Overcoming of Legal Science 6 From Reason to History: Savigny’s System and the Rise of Social Legal Science 7 The Burgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB) of 1900: Positive Legal Science and the End of Justice Conclusion Note on Sources Notes Index

About the Author :
Roger Berkowitz is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Studies and Human Rights at Bard College.

Review :
Roger Berkowitz, in his The Gift of Science, argues that Leibniz gave us the gift of modern legal science...Readers interested in philosophy, political theory, and legal theory will find in The Gift of Science a provocative and stimulating account of the nitty-gritty dynamics by which modern legal science became what it is. The book is written with clarity and rigor, it is erudite and forcefully argued, and provides a powerful defense of the importance of the metaphysical conceptions at work in what look to be the more mundane aspects of our lives. -- Dan Silver Foundations of Political Theory In his highly erudite new book, Roger Berkowitz identifies a fundamental problem at the heart of the modern legal order: we no longer connect law with justice in a meaningful way...The range and difficulty of the material that Berkowitz examines in his account of codification is extraordinary...He provides careful readings of primary texts both famous and obscure, supporting his conclusions with his own translations from the original Latin, German, and French texts. The display of learning and the detailed analyses make for an impressive package. -- Keith J. Bybee Law & Politics Book Review Animating Berkowitz's book is his profound concern that law has abandoned justice as its fundamental aspiration. Once the embodiment of humanity's highest moral ideals, the law has become a mere tool for the pursuit of social and economic interests. This insightful and provocative history of modern legal science aims to explain how this fundamental change in the nature of law occurred. Berkowitz argues that this transformation was ultimately the result of Leibniz's attempt to save law from a crisis of authority by bringing it within the scope of his scientific metaphysics...Berkowitz's narrative encourages a new understanding of the nature of modern legal positivism. Having lost its traditional foundations in natural law, religion, and custom, the essence of modern positive law is its need for scientific justification. Berkowitz's account of the transformation of law from a moral entity into a technical object explains why contemporary jurists tend to disregard the ontological question of law--what is law?--and, at the same time, provides an urgent reminder that this question cannot be ignored. -- Michael B. Mathias Review of Metaphysics 20061201 What Berkowitz has done is to contribute to a fuller appreciation of Leibniz' astounding genius by illuminating this other unknown area of his endeavour: the philosophy of law...I recommend it highly. -- Eike-Henner W. Kluge Philosophy in Review 20070601