March 03, 2009

Who was the most important legal philosopher of the 20th-Century

I've been having fun with (utterly unscientific and unreliable) polls on my other blogs, so here's one for this audience.   Maybe we'll have a run-off, depending on the results here.  Feel free to post omissions from the list below in the comments.

Who was the most important legal philospher of the 20th-Century?




View Results
Free poll from Free Web Polls

UPDATE (MARCH 4, 7 PM CST):  Here are the results after 70 votes:

1.  H.L.A. Hart (59%)

2.  Joseph Raz (13%)

3.  Ronald Dworkin (9%)

4.  John Finnis (6%)

4.  Hans Kelsen (6%)

6.  None of the choices offered--someone else (4%)

7.  Lon Fuller (3%)

8.  Karl Llewellyn (1%)

By the way, I didn't vote for Llewellyn, I voted for Hart.  Much as I enjoy Llewellyn, he's not, needless to say, a good philosopher (though not obviously worse than Fuller!).  Obviously the Anglophone readership explains how Kelsen could come in behind Dworkin.   I'll do another tally in a few days.

UPDATE (MARCH 7 6 PM CST):  So with not quite 140 votes cast, here's my final tally:

1.  H.L.A. Hart (55%)

2.  Hans Kelsen (14%)

3.  Joseph Raz (11%)

4.  Ronald Dworkin (9%)

5.  John Finnis (5%)

6.  Someone not listed as a choice (3%)

7.  Lon Fuller (2%)

8.  Karl Llewellyn (1%)

8.  Alf Ross (1%)

Congratulations to the winners!  Your prize check is in the mail!

Posted by Brian Leiter on March 3, 2009 in Games | Permalink | Comments (4)