Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Normative legal thought

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was no consensus --cesarb 20:29, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Normative legal thought
This seems to be just someone's philosophical rant. Though I'd like an article on Normative Legal Thought... I'd prefer that this be simply rewritten instead of deleted. Tadanisakari 06:51, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete for POV. The entire content of the article, as suggested by the title "my rant", seems to be original research. Xoloz 06:54, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * If you don't want it deleted, Tadanisakari, why are you nominating it for deletion? Why aren't you using the appropriate cleanup mechanism? Uncle G 07:36, 2005 Jun 5 (UTC)
 * Sorry guys, I'm a bit new to Wikipedia. I've added an "attention" template to the article and I added it to the Cleanup list. I guess that means a Keep, cleanup is more appropriate. I'm learnin' the ropes, thanks for being patient.  Tadanisakari 19:11, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
 * Don't delete articles which should exist for NPOV concerns - as Uncle G points out, this should simply be rewritten. If you don't have the expertise/time/whatever to do it yourself, there are mechanisms for this. Keep and send it through those mechanisms. ESkog 08:38, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, cleanup. -- BD2412 talk 14:54, 2005 Jun 5 (UTC)
 * My problem with keep votes is that, without other qualifications, "normative" legal thought is inherently a POV concept. Common law (Anglo-American, the Commonwealth) and Civil Law (mainland Europe and former colonies) are too vastly different to be subsumed in a single "Legal thought" article, imho.  This is in addition to any problems with "normative" concepts generally. Xoloz 21:22, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I disagree. We have articles on certain ethnic slurs, for example, which are inherently POV, but the article addresses the origin and use of the term itself. Clearly there are people who believe that certain legal thought is indeed normative. We should have an article examining the origin and use of that concept, much as we examine Eurocentrism not from the perspective that Europe is the most important continent on earth, but from the perspective of examing why Eurocentrists think that it is, and how this bias has affected the wider world. -- BD2412 talk 20:20, 2005 Jun 10 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with your suggestion, except that I am unaware of serious scholarly (or even widespread common) criticism of "normative legal thought" as such. The closest I can come to such an argument would be one frequently encountered in law schools, that the common law is inherently and blindly capitalist, materialist, and acquisitive.  If I ever become really bold, I might write such an article myself, because it would be a useful one; but, I would call it "Criticisms of the Common Law" or "Socialist Criticisms of the common law."  In any case, I would happily entertain such content, but it isn't here now.  Even if it were, it would have a bad title -- one simply cannot speak of "normative legal thought" unqualified -- the article must at least be renamed "normative common law thought" or "normative Anglo-American legal thought."  Otherwise, this article will be the equivalent of writing an article on "normative philosophy" and discussing only thinkers from England -- a gross misnomer.  In short, I'd love to see loads of criticism of conventional legal thought, but it needs better classification.  Given that this piece is both ranting and under a horribly imprecise title, I see nothing of value in it. Xoloz 10:57, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. If an article of this name is to exist, I can't think of anything NPOV to put there. It is unlikely that the POV rant currently there can be reworked into something worthwhile, so it's better to delete for now with the possibility of starting afresh sometime later. arj 22:36, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete the current text - though a page on that subject would be nice, I don't think there's much worth keeping in that article. I have no idea on that subject, but it seems that those here that do want to scrap it. Flammifer 12:20, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete because there's nothing on the page worth keeping. If anyone wants to write an article on this subject, great, but what's the point of keeping this self-described "rant" while waiting indefinitely for that to happen? Russ Blau (talk) 18:20, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete per RussBlau.carmeld1 22:00, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages.  Please do not edit this page .