John Austin

Born	(1790-03-03)3 March 1790 Creeting Mill, Suffolk
Died	1 December 1859(1859-12-01) (aged 69) Weybridge, Surrey
Era	19th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Legal positivism
Main interests	Legal philosophy
Influenced by Jeremy Bentham
Influenced Joseph Raz, H. L. A. Hart

John Austin (3 March 1790, Creeting Mill, Suffolk – 1 December 1859, Weybridge, Surrey) was a noted British jurist and published extensively concerning the philosophy of law and jurisprudence.^[1]

Austin served with the British Army in Sicily and Malta, but sold his officer's commission to study law. He became a member of the Bar during 1818. He discontinued his law practice soon after, devoted himself to the study of law as a science, and became Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of London (now University College London) 1826-33. Thereafter he served on various Royal Commissions.

His publications had a profound influence on English jurisprudence. They include The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832), and Lectures on Jurisprudence.^[2]

On 24 August 1819, Austin married Sarah Taylor, who also became an author, at St George Colegate, Norwich.^[3]

Theory of legal positivism [edit]

John Austin is best known for his work developing the theory of legal positivism. Among other things he attempted in this to clearly separate moral rules from "positive law."

The three basic points of Austin's theory of law are that:

• the law is command issued by the uncommanded commander—the sovereign;
• such commands are backed by threats of sanctions; and
• a sovereign is one who is habitually obeyed

Austin's view of 'a sovereign' was challenged by Henry Maine in "Early Institutions" where he argues that in some Empires of the Orient there is nothing to correspond with "determinate superior" or sovereign.

Austin was greatly influenced in his utilitarian approach to law by Jeremy Bentham.

References [edit]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource

• Rumble, Wilfred E. (1985). The Thought of John Austin: Jurisprudence, Colonial Reform, and the British Constitution London. Dover, NH: Athlone Press. ISBN 0485112922. 

External links [edit]

• John Austin entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Works written by or about John Austin at Wikisource