Burke on Law, Revolution, and Constitution

This chapter presents the main themes of Edmund Burke’s political jurisprudence. It suggests that those themes can be derived from the political stance he took on the four great issues of world affairs that most occupied the attention of his times: the revolutions in North America and in France, and the status of Ireland and India within the British Empire. It argues that Burke maintains a relatively consistent position over each of these controversies and that this derives from the main tenets of his political jurisprudence which rejected the type of metaphysical reasoning prominently exhibited in doctrines of natural rights.