Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy and jurisprudence that studies basic questions about law and legal systems, such as "what is law?", "what are the criteria for legal validity?", "what is the relationship between law and morality?", and many other similar questions.
"The principal objective of analytic jurisprudence has traditionally been to provide an account of what distinguishes law as a system of norms from other systems of norms, such as ethical norms." The question that has received the most attention from philosophers of law is What is law? Several schools of thought have provided rival answers to this question, the most influential of which are:
Jurisprudence is the science, study and theory of law. It includes principles behind law that make the law. Scholars of jurisprudence, also known as jurists or legal theorists (including legal philosophers and social theorists of law), hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions. Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and was focused on the first principles of the natural law, civil law, and the law of nations. General jurisprudence can be divided into categories both by the type of question scholars seek to answer and by the theories of jurisprudence, or schools of thought, regarding how those questions are best answered. Contemporary philosophy of law, which deals with general jurisprudence, addresses problems in two rough groups: