Question

Law is conceived as a form of the power value – conceived by

• A. Bentham and Austin
• B. Hart
• C. C Lasswell and McDougal
• D. Karl Olivecrona

Hint:

For jurisprudence questions, create a table mapping key jurists to their respective schools of thought (e.g., Positivist, Realist, Natural Law) and their core ideas or famous quotes. This helps in quickly associating a concept with the correct jurist.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
The question asks to identify the jurists who viewed law as a form of "power value." This perspective originates from the American Realist school of jurisprudence, which emphasizes a policy-oriented approach to law, seeing it as a tool for achieving social goals or "values."
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
- Bentham and Austin belong to the Analytical/Positivist school. They defined law as the "command of the sovereign," which is backed by sanction. While this involves power, their focus was on the source and structure of law, not on law as a value system itself.
- H.L.A. Hart was a leading figure in modern legal positivism. He conceived law as a system of primary and secondary rules, moving away from the simplistic command theory.
- Karl Olivecrona was a Scandinavian Realist who saw law as a set of psychological facts, independent of morality or legislative command. He viewed legal rules as "independent imperatives" that shape human behavior.
- Harold Lasswell and Myres McDougal, associated with the Yale school of policy sciences, developed a unique jurisprudential approach. They argued that law is a process of authoritative decision-making used to achieve certain social values. They identified eight key values, including power, wealth, respect, and skill. In their framework, law is not just a set of rules but a continuous process of making policy choices to maximize these values in society. Thus, they explicitly conceived law in relation to the "power value."
Step 3: Final Answer:
The jurists who conceived law as a form of the power value are C Lasswell and McDougal.

Answer 2

This question is about a specific school of jurisprudence that treats law not as a set of commands or rules, but as a process aimed at securing certain social values, one of which is power. Let's go through each name and see whether their theory fits that description.

1. Bentham and Austin: These two jurists founded the command theory of law, under which law is whatever the sovereign commands, backed by the threat of a sanction if disobeyed. Their theory explains the source and structure of law, but it does not describe law as a device for pursuing values like power, wealth, or respect. So this pairing does not match the description in the question.
2. Hart: Hart moved legal theory away from command and sanction, describing law instead as a union of primary rules, which impose duties, and secondary rules, which allow the creation, change, and adjudication of those duties. This is a structural account of what law is, not a value-based account of what law is for, so it does not fit either.
3. C Lasswell and McDougal: Working within what is often called the policy-science or New Haven approach, these two scholars described law as a continuous process of authoritative decision-making aimed at securing a set of basic social values for the community, and they explicitly listed power among those values, alongside wealth, respect, skill, and others. Describing law as a form of the power value is precisely their contribution, which makes this the matching option.
4. Karl Olivecrona: A Scandinavian realist, Olivecrona treated legal rules as psychological facts, that is, as independent imperatives that influence how people behave, without needing any backing from morality or a sovereign command. His focus is on the psychological mechanism of law, not on law as a bearer of social values like power.

Only Lasswell and McDougal built their theory of law directly around a catalogue of values, with power named as one of them, which is why their names complete the sentence correctly.

So the correct answer is C Lasswell and McDougal.