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When grounded in Marx's 1859 Preface, historical materialism raises two key problems for legal scholars: One concerns determination, and the other the notion of base and superstructure. One way of understanding how each theorist tackles the two problems is to realise that their solutions are context bound; bound by time, bound by place, bound by what we might call their concrete socio-political situation. Each theorist takes the insights of Marx and applies them to their own time and place. This has led to a wealth of Marxist approaches to law, which will be detailed in Part 1. The solutions that have been proposed to the two problems, however, have been consistently unsatisfactory. As Part 2 will outline, socio-economic and political conditions have changed massively over the last three decades or so: A distinctive 'late modern' period has emerged. Just as each Marxist legal theorist responded to their own distinctive milieu, so any contemporary socio-legal theorist must recognise and respond to the realities of the late modem world. Late modern developments have created the potential for a modified Marxist legal theory that seeks to alleviate the difficulties associated with the old ones. The shape of such a theory is outlined in Part 3. The new theory is based on the work of Hugh Collins, but it is contended that late modern changes in society help to alleviate the great Achilles heel of his Marxist theory of law- the need to rely on an all-encompassing and thus implausibly elastic dominant ideology associated with a well- defined ruling class. Instead, under late modern conditions a series of 'micro-ideologies' guide the creation of law and norms in a number of discrete spheres, and the state's former monopoly on law- making is progressively eroded. Thus, the core idea of Collins' work- the ideological determination of law- is preserved, but adapted to contemporary, late modern conditions. The result is a prolegomenon for a revived Marxist theory of law that is in tune with current socio- political and economic conditions.

Two major intuitions dominate contemporary legal and political philosophy. One springs from a form of objectivism: if we can know what is good for people, states should, in principle, help them lead good lives. The other is the widely shared presumption in favour of freedom, a principle often cited in debates regarding the limits of the law. As people often fail to serve their own good, the conflicts that inevitably arise between the two positions raise crucial questions regarding legislation and governmental policies. An attempt to resolve these conflicts must start from a critical evaluation of the content of our intuitions. Freedom seems to be most valued when understood as personal autonomy, i.e. a principle of free self- authorship. On the other hand, the' good' we expect the state to promote is what is good for persons, i.e. their personal well-being. Once we have appreciated the value of personal autonomy as well as the basic elements of well-being, we can conclude that there is an aspect of the latter that can be justifiably promoted by appropriately mild coercive means. This is a job for legal paternalism. The other aspect, which is dependent on the successful pursuit of wholeheartedly endorsed goals and projects allows only for encouragement and argument on the p311 of the state. These conclusions have significant implications for the justification and practice of legal paternalism as well as for the non-paternalistic promotion of well-being in schemes that are often categorised under the heading 'liberal perfectionism'.

The present thesis explores inter alia how the relationship between the state, groups and their members is framed in the legal imagination. Legal pluralism is an analytical tool used to discuss the operation, interaction and conflicts between 'normative orders' (a term which describes the systematic rules of social associations). Martha-Marie Kleinhans and Roderick Macdona1d posit an image of law and society (called 'critical legal pluralism') that locates law in human imagination, captured in people's narrative accounts. One criticism of their approach is that it establishes an indeterminate conception of legality. To explore the criticism, this thesis investigates two research questions: how is it useful for socio-1ega1 scholars to locate law within the human imagination? And, can socio-1ega1 researchers capture and document subjective 1aw(s)? The aim is to unveil (or reveal) whether a subjective legal pluralist approach is useful, or even possible, for socio-1ega1 scholars to undertake by using the practice of veiling (the wearing of a hijab, jilbab, niqab or burqa) as a case study. A critical analysis of the leading House of Lords' judgment in R (on the application of Begum) v Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School [2007] 1 AC. 100 provides an opportunity to examine the reasons for and against accommodating the practice in Britain. Although some scholars highlight the importance of acknowledging the inter-woven relationship between cultural and religious groups and their members, they do not suggest how the relationship can be captured in law, outside of the liberal rights-based framework. This is the first study to put forward a subjective legal pluralist approach to the practice. As the particular reasons why women wear a veil can only be assumed, the findings from an empirical study provide insight to one crucial question: do women who live in Britain and wear a veil experience the practice as law? iv

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This thesis analyses the relationship between health, solidarity, and justice from a discourse theoretical perspective. Jürgen Habermas links justice to free, uncoerced, and inclusive processes of discursive consensus building. The realisation of these rational discourses, however, depends on a sense of solidarity between participants: solidarity is the counterpart of justice. Yet, in modern capitalism solidarity is the scarcest social resource. This leaves societies with the task of reconstructing the conditions that would make solidarity, and therefore justice, sustainable. This thesis argues that health offers an important contribution to this project. Habermas‟s universal pragmatics is used to analyse different concepts of health, and in adopting the perspective of the participant an intersubjective understanding of health is proposed. Placed within Habermas‟s theory of society, health is conceptualised as a sub-system of the lifeworld that contributes to social reproduction at the cultural, normative, and personality levels by: reproducing lay and medical knowledge; nurturing social solidarity through nets of formal and informal healthcare; and contributing to the development of personalities capable of and motivated to joining relationships of mutual recognition. These last two contributions reveal the relevance of health in fostering conditions for justice. The growing literature on the social determinants of health is explored to the conclusion that the relationship between health and justice is reciprocal and closer than commonly assumed. This insight is then applied to the context of the right to health. The thesis refutes different liberal challenges to the right to health and explores the right from the perspective of Habermas‟s reconstruction of the system of rights and procedural paradigm of law. The thesis concludes that discourse theory provides a better understanding of the relationship between health and justice, and therefore, better grounds for interpreting health as a legitimate human right.

This thesis is a genealogical inquiry into law’s conditions of possibility for political critique as/and resistance. Questioning law’s claim to normativity, it argues that law is a performative discourse that generates and presents its normative materiality through performative iterations. From the constitution of sovereignty to the formation of the legal subject; from the rituals of legislation to ceremonials of adjudication, there is a performative logic that contingently conditions law’s generation of the normative reality of the present. Arguing that law’s normative representation and expression of sovereignty, the subject, and politics closes the possibility for change and becoming; contesting law’s claims to rationality, objectivity, neutrality, autonomy, and universality; it puts forth a performative epistemology of law that is attentive to power and discourse; and to the production of knowledge’ and the ‘generation of truth.’ Calling attention to law’s entanglement with power and the violence of exclusion and domination; it brings historical inquiry into the orbit of law and legality. The thesis presents the political trial both as: (1) a moment that subverts law’s normative claims to rationality, autonomy and value-neutrality; and (2) as a power-knowledge formation capable of accommodating fresh articulations of hegemonic norms. Drawing on Foucault’s conceptions of power and resistance, I will offer strategies and tactics that: (1) formulate and circulate strategic knowledge of power in law; and (2) open up new sites of struggle for what I call a performative-genealogical intervention.

This thesis explores a novel approach to understanding H.L.A. Hart's account of the 'normativity of law'. A successful account of the 'normativity of law' is meant to inter alia establish how legal requirements come to be morally binding. It will be argued that the internal point of view, key to Hart's account of normativity, can intelligibly constitute the 'source' of moral bindingness only if one assumes a projectivist model (resting on a non-cognitivist metaethic). The projectivist model understands moral bindingness as the motivational pull exerted by a moral judgment owing to the attitude of approval underlying it. Hart never expressly endorsed projectivism - far from it: he refused to take any firm metaethical stance at all. This thesis argues, however, that there are semantic and metaethical elements in Hart's scheme that naturally lend themselves to a projectivist model. A good portion of this thesis comprises in setting out, aligning - and where appropriate, emending - those elements so as to yield a coherent projectivist model of the 'normativity of law'. While discussing Hart's account of normativity occupies a bulk of this thesis, its overarching telos would be to take the first steps towards attempting a new begrundung of the projectivist model of 'normativity of law'. It does so by setting out the conceptual underpinnings of the projectivist model and by allaying some of the misgivings surrounding it. The projectivist model used to be prominent in the first half of the 20th century, thanks to the pioneering works of the Scandinavian Legal Realists, but has of late largely fallen into disrepute. Although Hart is widely credited with having taken apart the Scandinavian Legal Realists' project - who themselves saw Hart's project as contiguous with theirs - it will be argued that there is indeed a great deal convergence between the projects of Hart and the Scandinavian Legal Realists.

This paper puts forth a radical behaviorist approach to legal theory according to which law is a set of behavioral contingencies which control the behavior of individuals according to politically defined goals. Based on the proposition that modern legal systems, because of their inherent contingency and chronic mutability, are irremediably instrumental to politically defined social goals, and on the radical behaviorist fundamental assumption that a science of human behavior is possible, the paper develops what can be called a radical behaviorist perspective on social systems theory. According to this perspective, a social system is neither a collection of individuals nor of individual acts, but a class of interconnected behavioral patterns or cultural practices conditioned and maintained through the same generalized reinforcer, which, in the case of law, is the dichotomy between legal versus illegal. To construct this radical behaviorist perspective on social systems theory, the paper relies on three major theoretical foundations. The first one is a criticism of Skinner’s concept of verbal behavior according to which instead of a special kind of behavior, it is defined as nothing but the human species-specific operant control of the vocal musculature by social reinforcement contingencies. The second one is to propose a more functional alternative to Skinner’s concept of human social behavior as that kind of operant behavior which is conditioned and maintained by other people’s behavior. The third one is a dialogue between radical behaviorism and Luhmann’s social systems theory, whose main purpose is to provide radical behaviorism with a more sophisticated description of modern society which, despite several differences, is also radically anti-individualistic and evolutionary. The final part of the paper is a detailed discussion of how law controls human behavior.

When we think of “law” in a popular sense, we think of “rules” or the institutions that make or enforce those rules (legislatures, the police, courts, etc.). But where do these rules come from and what makes them legal rules? Put differently, does a rule’s status as a legal rule mean that it is sealed off from the influence of other systems of human knowledge and inquiry (like the humanities)? There are many possible answers to these questions, but the one that I am concerned to examine in my work arises from narrative, which is one of the most fundamental modes of human expression. By keeping narratives at a distance or delay, law loses (and has indeed lost) some of its essential humanity. My project is, then, an attempt to explain the relationship between law and narrative, and—in the end—to suggest ways to rehumanize law by reconnecting it to its narrative roots and certain cognates in the humanities. To do this, I retell dozens of law-stories within a theoretical framework derived from literary, legal, and political theory.