Abstract

Hohfeldian normative system are normative systems that can be described by means of the analytical framework expounded by Hohfeld in his two famous papers on the fundamental legal conceptions. In this article I analyze some features of this particular kind of normative systems. Hohfeld’s original idea was to design a universal tool capable of describing, at the most basic level, the web of normative relationships between persons created by a system of rules. My claim is, instead, that if we take Hohfeld’s framework literally as it is, Hohfeldian normative systems are few. This happens because, amongst other peculiarities, standard Hohfeldian normative systems are necessarily complete and unclosed. In the final part of the article I will show how we can have instead incomplete and closed Hohfeldian normative systems, extending in this way the descriptive range of Hohfeld’s framework