Abstract
Macklem argues in his book Law and Life in Common that law and legal systems arise from the interplay between reason, will and imagination. He aims to show that critical theories of law, which construe law as will or power, have an element of truth since their focus on the idea of will or power sheds light on the contingent, open and plural features of the law. He aims to unify a) Raz’s Service Conception of Authority, which is grounded on reason; b) critical theories of law, which focus on will (or power), and c) Dworkin’s constructive theory of law which is built around the idea of imagination. Macklem tells us that unification is possible if we admit that each of these theories is incomplete and if we subsequently use this incompleteness to consider the respective notions each theory is grounded in, i.e. reason, will and imagination, to show how a complete and satisfactory picture of law as social practice can emerge.