Empty Justice: One Hundred Years of Law Literature and Philosophy

Utilising literature as a serious source of challenges to questions in philosophy and law, this book provides a fresh perspective not only upon the inculcation of the legal subject, but also upon the relationship between modernism, postmodernism and how such concepts might evolve in the construction of community ethics. The creation and role of the legal subject is just one aspect of jurisprudential enquiry now attracting much attention.

How do moral values act upon the subject? How do moral 'systems' impinge upon the subject - jurist and judged - throughout the 20th century, when religious values are called into question, when 'existential' doubt prevails? To what extent do issues of gender and identity inform these questions?

Many sources can provide insights into these issues: this book intends to concentrate upon fiction as just such a resource. However it is not just another law and literature compilation. Spanning the last century, each chapter will attempt to fulfil four objectives: to identify key texts in relation to a given period; to look for linked legal and philosophical developments from that period; to establish fresh links from these sources regarding concrete doctrinal, or practical legal questions, and finally draw a more general inference about the legal subject and the frequently less evident feminine citizen-subject.

Central to this approach will be the consideration of contemporary case law and legal materials as social documents of the relationship between law and the wider community.