Editing Jurisprudence (section)

== Overview ==
Whereas lawyers are interested in what the law is on a specific issue in a specific jurisdiction, analytical philosophers of law are interested in identifying the features of law shared across cultures, times, and places. Taken together, these foundational features of law offer the kind of universal definition philosophers are after. The general approach allows philosophers to ask questions about, for example, what separates law from [[morality]], politics, or [[practical reason]].<ref name=":02">{{Citation |last=Marmor |first=Andrei |title=The Nature of Law |date=2015 |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/lawphil-nature/ |access-date=2019-05-15 |edition=Fall 2015 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |last2=Sarch |first2=Alexander |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> While the field has traditionally focused on giving an account of law's nature, some scholars have begun to examine the nature of domains within law, e.g. [[Tort|tort law]], [[Contract|contract law]], or [[criminal law]]. These scholars focus on what makes certain domains of law distinctive and how one domain differs from another. A particularly fecund area of research has been the distinction between tort law and criminal law, which more generally bears on the difference between civil and criminal law.<ref>{{Citation |last=Edwards |first=James |title=Theories of Criminal Law |date=2018 |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/criminal-law/ |access-date=2019-05-21 |edition=Fall 2018 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref>

In addition to analytic jurisprudence, legal philosophy is also concerned with normative theories of law. "Normative jurisprudence involves normative, evaluative, and otherwise prescriptive questions about the law."<ref name=":42">{{cite web |title=Philosophy of Law |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/law-phil/#H2 |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref>