Jurisprudence means the knowledge, science, study, or philosophy of law. These are my conclusions after studying jurisprudence 30 years ago and subsequently contemplating my cognitive experience of moral actions, justice, and injustice. During law school I rapidly concluded, "There is no justice! There is only a justice system!"
Moral judgments are products of a cognitive process arising in the dramatic context. Baruch Spinoza provides the means to reduce and analyze patterns of moral judgment. He describes an affect as a feeling of desire, pleasure, or pain accompanied by an idea of its cause.
I refer to an idea of cause as a source of cause. A source of cause is a generic concept until it is further specified in the dramatic context. Spinoza maps generic sources of cause to generic terms for God, Nature, self, and others. Moral judgments are absent from the drama when we contemplate Nature as the ultimate source of cause. Moral judgments and sentiments are present when we contemplate God, self, and other(s) as the sources of cause. The lines between moral and non-moral (natural) sources of cause are fuzzy or vague in the human drama. A wolf can howl at the moon. A person can wonder at the beauty of Nature or rage against the fates in the midst of the tempest storm!
Common law refers to the legal reasoning of judges in the context of resolving societal disputes. Common law is thus a body of historic reasoning, about the sense of justice and injustice, in the context of actual disputes between the plaintiff (who files the complaint seeking a remedy from the court) and the defendant (who must respond to the complaint or risk the downside outcome of an adverse default judgment).
Common law courts divide sources of cause into these generic distinctions. First, the distinction between a remote (ultimate) and nearby (proximate) cause. Second, the distinction between a human (moral) and non-human (natural) source of cause. Third, the distinction between a sole or joint source of cause. A joint cause is the recognition of two or more independent sources of cause. Moral judgment applies only to the actions of humans in the dramatic context of law. Courts cannot hold God or Nature accountable for their actions.
Common law is a government-like function where the courts are the source of authority concerning the outcome from the justice system and the police stand ready to enforce the judgment of the court. These functions have been organized under the formal State with the legislature, executive branch, and the court system paid for by taxes as services that in a just or moral society are intended to provide for the public good. Legal autocrats attempt to populate the courts and police force with a political group that bends the justice system to its own political agenda.
Anarchic libertarian philosophers imagine a more just world operating without State coercion. Libertarians value individual liberty and wish to minimize or eliminate police coercion. Coercion is a means employed by the system(s) of justice and yet it is also an evil or harm to the will of the coerced individual. In terms of law, then, the justice system, whether formal or informal, is concerned with the justified use of coercion under a claim of right to use such coercion. When I am a teenage my older brother often says, "Who died and made you the authority?" My younger brother, in response to external source of authority, often says, "Bull-dinky!" Property rights, for example, allocate authority to individuals concerning activities that relate to scarce economic resources. The justice system or rules of law attempt to allocate authority to do or not do some action in the context of social drama.
Common law courts stand ready to enforce valid contracts, which are not against public policy, and common law defines non-contractual actionable harms as crimes or torts. Contracts and torts are called civil law because the complaints, and legal remedies, concern the award of financial damages and/or injunctions. An injunction is a court order which states what a party to the dispute must do or refrain from doing. Financial damages mean payment of (legal transfer of title) economic resources typically stated as a sum of money in the human money cultures. Crimes are actions that harm other individuals against the conscience of society punishable by fines and confinement.
In the so-called free market economic system the Sovereign government defines the accounting unit ($, dollar) then creates money by deficit spending (financial expenditures in excess of receipts over a period) to increase the both government debt and the private sector financial savings. The modern banks are authorized to create money from thin air by making contracts which increase bank assets (loans due) and money supply (bank deposit liabilities). The non-bank sector generates economic wealth and income by forming contracts, and executing contracts, with other non-bank agents, with banks, and with governments. The moral agents in these games have public duties or obligations as officers of government, and private interests. We see that contracts, torts, crimes, liberty, disputes, and coercive powers of government or government-like officials are inherent in the so-called free market system. This is because we experience moral judgments with a sense of justice or injustice. I think the other alloparenting apes (so-called lower apes) also experience our basic moral sentiments but without formal concepts or social institutions.
Concerning the parties to a civil dispute or the outcome of a criminal trial often both parties are not satisfied with the outcome. Therefore, I say, There is no justice! There is only a justice system!
