A collection of the author's new and reprinted papers in general jurisprudence. Chapters: -/- Introduction: A Philosophy of Legal Philosophy -/- Law, As Such 1. The Concept of Law Revisited 2. Law as a Means 3. Custom and Convention at the Foundations of Law 4. Realism and the Sources of Law 5. Feminism in Jurisprudence -/- Law and Morality 6. The Germ of Justice 7. The Inseparability of Law and Morals 8. The Morality in Law 9. The Role of (...) a Judge 10. Should Law Improve Morality? -/- The Demands of Law 11. Hume on Allegiance 12. Associative Obligations and the State 13. The Forces of Law 14. The Duty to Govern. (shrink)

Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1986 to 2009 /// Historical background -- An imposed legacy -- Twentieth century contemporaneity -- Appendix: The philosophy of teaching legal philosophy in Hungary /// HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -- PHILOSOPHY OF LAW IN CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE: A SKETCH OF HISTORY [1999] 11–21 // PHILOSOPHISING ON LAW IN THE TURMOIL OF COMMUNIST TAKEOVER IN HUNGARY (TWO PORTRAITS, INTERWAR AND POSTWAR: JULIUS MOÓR & ISTVÁN LOSONCZY) [2001–2002] 23–39: Julius Moór 23 / István Losonczy 29 (...) // ON THE SURVIVAL OF ILMAR TAMMELO’S LETTER AND MANUSCRIPT ADDRESSED TO PROFESSOR MOÓR [2009] 41–44 // PROFESSIONAL DISTRESS AND SCARCITY: ALEXANDER HORVÁTH AND THE LEGACY OF NATURAL LAW IN HUNGARY [2005] 45–50 // HUNGARIAN LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE 20TH CENTURY [2011] 51–72: I. The Pre-war Period [1. Bódog (Felix) Somló (1871–1920) 52] / II. The Inter-war Period [2. Gyula (Julius) Moór (1888–1950) 54 / 3. Barna Horváth (1896–1973) 55 / 4. József Szabó (1909–1992) 57 / 5. István Bibó (1911–1979) 58 / 6. Tibor Vas (1911–1983) 59 / 7. István Losonczy (1918–1980) 60] III. The Post-war Period (Communism) 61 [8. Imre Szabó (1912–1991) 62 / 9. Vilmos Peschka (1929–2006) 63 / 10. Kálmán Kulcsár (1928–2010) 65] IV. Contemporary Trends and Perspectives 66 [11. Csaba Varga (b. 1941) 66 / 12. András Sajó (b. 1949) 69 / 13. Béla Pokol (b. 1950) 70] V. Our Understanding of the Law Today 71 --- AN IMPOSED LEGACY -- LOOKING BACK [1999] 75–94: 1. On Ideologies and Marxism in general 75 / 2. Life of an Intellectual in Communism 79 / 3. On Marxism and its Socialist Cultivation in Particular 82 / 4. Legal Philosophising [4.1. Approaches to Law 87 / 4.2. Arriving at a Legal Ontology 91] 5. Conclusion 94 // LEGAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE MARXISM OF SOCIALISM: HUNGARIAN OVERVIEW IN AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE [2003] 95–151: I. Development and Balance of Marxist Philosophising on Law in Hungary [1. Preliminaries (until 1948) 96 / 2. Stalinism (from the Soviet Occupation on) {a) Liquidation of the »Residues« 98 / b) Soviet-type Uniformisation [Gleichschaltung] 99 / c) Denial of the Past, with a Dual Effect 99 / d) »Socialist Legality«, Drawn from the Progressive Past of Western Europe 103 / e) Search for the Germs of Scholarly Evolution 103} 3. Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation (from the 1960s) [a) Epigonism Becoming the Scholarly Ideal 104 / b) Stalinism in a Critical Self-perspective 105 / c) Disciples Diversified Launching their own Trends 107 / d) Comparatism 110 / e) (Re)discovery of the Western Legal Philosophy as a Competitor 112 / f) A Leading Mediatory Role within the »Socialist World Order« 114} 4. Disintegration (in the 1980s) {a) Attempt at Laying New Foundations for Marxism with Epigonism Exhausted 115 / b) Competitive Trends Becoming Exclusive 115 / c) Western Legal Philosophy Acknowledged as a Fellow-traveller within the Socialist Orbit Proper 116 / d) Hungarian Legal Theory Transforming into a National Corpus 118 / e) The Practical Promotion of Some Balance 119} 5. End-game for a Substitute State Religion (in the 1990s) 120] II. Marxist Legal Philosophising in an International Perspective [Ad 1: To the Preliminaries 122 / Ad 2: To Stalinism 124 / Ad 3: To Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation {a) Late Separation from Vishinskiy’s Theory 125 / b) From Ideological Self-closure to an Apparently Scholarly Openness 127 / c) From Political Ideology to Genuine Scholarship 130 / d) International Recognition of Socialist Jurisprudence as an Independent Trend 135 / e) Together with Western Trends 137} Ad 4: To Disintegration {a) Loss of Attraction as Mere Epigonism 139 / b) Exclusivity of Competing Trends 139 / c) Fellowship with »Bourgeois« Trends 140 / d) An own Trend, Internationally Recognised 141 / e) A yet Progressive Role 142} Ad 5: To the Present state 143] III. A Temporary Balance 145 // AUTONOMY AND INSTRUMENTALITY OF LAW IN A SUPERSTRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE [1986] 151–175: 1. The Strange Fate of Concepts 151 / I. A Relational Category 2. Basis and Superstructure: The Genuine Meaning 154 / 3. Exerting Social Influence as a Conceptual Minimum 156 / 4. Relationships within the Prevailing Totality 158 / 5. Attempts at Interpretation in Hungary 159 / 6. The Lukácsian Stand 162 / 7. Lukács’s Recognitions 168 / 8. Some Criticism 169 / II. The Law’s Understanding 171 / 9. Law Interpreted as Superstructure 171 / 10. Conclusions Drawn for the Law’s Understanding 173 // LEGAL THEORY IN TRANSITION (A PREFACE FROM HUNGARY) [2000] 177–186 // DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL LEGAL THOUGHT IN HUNGARY AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM [2006] 187–215: 1. International Environment 188 / 2. The Situation in Hungary 190 / 3. Outlook I: The Historical-comparative Study of Legal Cultures and of the Lawyerly Way of Thinking 203 / 4. Outlook II: The Paradigmatic Enigma of the Transition to Rule of Law 207 / 5. Incongruity in Practice 213 / 6. Perspectives 214 --- TWENTIETH CENTURY CONTEMPORANEITY -- CHANGE OF PARADIGMS IN LEGAL RECONSTRUCTION: CARL SCHMITT AND THE TEMPTATION TO FINALLY REACH A SYNTHESIS [2002] 219–234: 1. Dangers of Intellectualism 219 / 2. Schmitt in Facts 221 / 3. Schmitt and Kelsen 222 / 4. On Bordering Conditions 226 / 5. With Kelsen in Transubstantiation 230 / 6. Polarisation as the Path of Theoretical Development 232 // KELSENIAN DOCUMENTS IN HUNGARY: CHAPTERS ON CONTACTS, INCLUDING THE GENESIS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY [2006] 235–243: 1. Preludes 235 / 2. The Search for Moór’s Bequeath 235 / 3. Moór’s Collegiality 238 / 4. Bibó as a Disciple Translating 241 // THE »HART-PHENOMENON« [2002] 245–267: I. The Hart-miracle 246 [1. The Scene of Britain at the Time 247 / 2. The Personal Career 250 / 3. The Opus’ Career 252 / 4. Verbal Sociologism 255 / 5. Growing into the British Pattern 259] II. The Hart-phenomenon 260 [6. Origination of a Strange Orthodoxy 261 / 7. Mastering Periods of the 20th Century 263 / 8. Raising the Issue of Reception in Hungary 365] // LITERATURE? A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL PHILOSOPHY? [2007] 269–287: 1. The Enigma of Law and its Study 269 / 2. “Law and Literature” 271 / 3. Varieties of “Law and Literature” 274 / 4. The German Study of Artistic Representations 280 / 5. Some Literary Reconsiderations 285 / 6. Conclusion 287 --- APPENDIX -- THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN HUNGARY [2007] 291–320: I. Why and How to Philosophise in Law? 291 / II. The State of Teaching Legal Philosophy 294 / III. The Philosophy of Teaching Legal Philosophy 296 / IV. Programme at the Catholic University of Hungary 300 [1. Graduate Studies 300 {a) Basic Subjects 301 / b) Facultative Seminars 305 / c) Closing Subjects 309 / d) Written Memoranda and the Thesis 312} 2. Postgraduate Studies 313 / 3. Conclusion 317] V. Perspectives 318 /// Index of Subjects 321 / Index of Normative Materials 328 / Index of Names 329 . (shrink)

This book is the product of a major British Academy Symposium held in 2007 to mark the centenary of the birth of H.L.A. Hart, the most important legal philosopher and one of the most important political philosophers of the twentieth century. -/- The book brings together contributions from seventeen of the world's foremost legal and political philosophers who explore the many subjects in which Hart produced influential work. Each essay engages in an original analysis of philosophical problems that (...) were tackled by Hart, some essays including extended critical discussions of his major works: The Concept of Law, Punishment and Responsibility, Causation in the Law and Law, Liberty and Morality. All the main topics of Hart's philosophical writings are featured: general jurisprudence and legal positivism; criminal responsibility and punishment; theories of rights; toleration and liberty; theories of justice; and causation in the law. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the theory of international law. In analytic jurisprudence, at least since the latter half of the twentieth century, the primary debate in general jurisprudence has been between legal positivism and its most ardent critic, Ronald Dworkin. The positivist tradition is represented here by its two most important theorists, Hans Kelsen and H.L.A. Hart. During their careers, Kelsen and Hart clashed over the best understanding of legal positivism. For his part, Dworkin devoted the bulk of (...) his critical attention to Hart's work. The chapter also focuses on the way in which each theorist builds his view of international law against the background of a more general jurisprudence. Hart argues that the differences between international law and municipal law might eventually be overcome. International law might be in a stage of transition that will bring it nearer in structure to a municipal system. (shrink)

Eugenio Bulygin is a distinguished representative of legal science and legal philosophy as they are known on the European continent - no accident, given the role of the civil law tradition in his home country, Argentina. Over the past half-century, Bulygin has engaged virtually all major legal philosophers in the English-speaking countries, including H.L.A. Hart, Ronald Dworkin, and Joseph Raz. Bulygin's essays, several written together with his eminent colleague and close friend Carlos E. Alchourrón, reflect the genre (...) familiar from Alf Ross's On Law and Justice, Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law, and Georg Henrik von Wright's Norm and Action. Bulygin's wide-ranging interests include most of the topics found under the rubric of analytical jurisprudence - interpretation and judicial reasoning, validity and efficacy of law, legal positivism and the problem of normativity, completeness and consistency of the legal system, the nature of legal norms, and the role of deontic logic in the law. The reader will take delight in the often agreeably unorthodox character of Bulygin's views and in his hard-hitting arguments in defence of them. He challenges the received opinion on gaps in the law, on legal efficacy, on permissory norms, and on the criteria for legal validity. Bulygin's essays have been wellnigh inaccessible in the past, appearing in specialized journals, often in Spanish or German. They are now available for the first time in an English-language collection. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that in some sense legal philosophy, at least as the term is now understood among analytic jurisprudents in the Anglophone world, is to a large extent a creation of H. L. A. Hart’s work. It is with him that the search for the concept or the nature of law was one established as an independent object of inquiry, that consciously tried to avoid moral or political questions. In framing the province of jurisprudence in (...) this way Hart not only departed from the work of Thomas Hobbes and Jeremy Bentham, whose political commitments are clear, but also from the seemingly much closer enterprise of John Austin. After demonstrating this difference between Austin’s enterprise and Hart’s, I criticize the direction legal philosophy has taken following Hart’s lead.Resumen:En este ensayo se plantea la idea de que en cierto modo la filosofía del derecho —al menos en la forma en que es entendida entre los filósofos analíticos del mundo angloparlante— es en gran medida una invención de H. L. A. Hart. Con la obra de Hart, en efecto, la búsqueda del concepto o naturaleza del derecho, se ha consolidado como un objeto de investigación independiente, que conscientemente pretende deslindarse de las cuestiones políticas o morales. Al definir el campo de estudio de la filosofía del derecho en este sentido, Hart no sólo se aparta del trabajo de Thomas Hobbes y de Jeremy Bentham, cuyos compromisos políticos son evidentes, sino también del proyecto aparentemente más cercano de John Austin. Después de señalar la diferencia entre los proyectos de Austin y de Hart, el autor pone en cuestión la dirección que ha tomado la filosofía del derecho al ser encabezada por Hart. (shrink)

H. L. A. Hart’s (1907-1992) influence on contemporary philosophy is not restricted to the philosophy of law. As the book’s sub-title suggests and the table of contents confirm, he wrote widely on matters social, political and moral, not just legal. Probably best known for The Concept of Law (1961), Hart also authored a collection of essays on Jeremy Bentham (Essays on Bentham,1982), two books on the morality of criminal law based on his exchange with Lord Patrick Devlin (Law, Liberty (...) and Morality, 1963) and The Morality of the Criminal Law, 1965), one on punishment (Punishment and Responsibility, 1968), a treatise as well as a collection of essays on jurisprudential theory (Definition and Theory in Jurisprudence, 1953, and Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy, 1983), and finally a volume on legal causation, co-authored with Tony Honoré (Causation in the Law, 1959). The book under review here, on Hart’s legacy, is divided into six sections: the first is devoted to Hart’s general jurisprudential theory; the second to his writings on criminal law; the third to legal causation; the fourth to concerns of justice; the fifth to legal, political and moral rights; and the sixth and final section to matters of toleration and liberalism. (shrink)

This book brings together contributions from seventeen of the world's foremost legal and political philosophers to examine the lasting influence of H.L.A. Hart. The essays explore the major subjects of Hart's work: general jurisprudence, criminal responsibility, rights, justice, causation and the foundations of liberalism.

In 1985, Swiss legal philosopher Walter Ott visited Herbert Hart in Oxford and made this record of their meeting, which casts novel light on some of Hart’s ideas. Ott engaged Hart in a fresh encounter with the legal philosophy of Gustav Radbruch, particularly Hart’s and Radbruch’s reasons for a minimum content of justice in law. They also discussed the grudge informer, state responsibility under laws of an earlier régime, and questions of the definition and falsifiability of legal (...) theories. Hart surprisingly reported Hans Kelsen as stating, when they had met at Berkeley in 1961, that Hume (and not Kant, and certainly not Wittgenstein) was the greatest philosopher who had ever lived. The translation is accompanied with annotations explaining references, assumptions and contexts. (shrink)

This book is an attempt to provide a philosophical answer to the simple question, "What is the law?" as well as address the various debates this question has spawned. Along the way, it develops a unique position within analytic jurisprudence by carefully distinguishing between a theory of the nature of a legal system and a theory of the nature of legal content. Finally, it applies the framework established in the first part of the book to two (...) substantive areas within legal theory: legal reasoning and international legal systems. The result is a unique introduction to the philosophy of law, one that presents and tests a theory of analytic jurisprudence, while it introduces students and others to this sub-field of philosophy. It explains and clarifies for students the views of the most significant scholars in the philosophy of law—those of H.L.A. Hart, Hans Kelsen, Joseph Raz, Ronald Dworkin, and John Finnis—and offers a critique of each. This approach should appeal to all types of philosophers--students and scholars alike--who are wary of wading into the field of legal theory as well as philosophers of law who wouldn’t find useful or interesting a mere survey of the field. (shrink)

A discourse on method -- Hart on legal powers and law's normativity -- The components of Hart's jurisprudential theory -- Hart on legal interpretation and legal reasoning -- Law and morality.

The article suggests a reading of the 1st edition of H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law (1961) which involves bringing to the fore the elements of moral prescription which accompany the descriptive/explanatory intent which Hart himself explicitly espouses. Thus, the functionalist account of the emergence of secondary rules in complex societies draws on the importance of social benefits, relating to justice and efficiency, benefits which Hart endorses. Consideration is then given to how the posthumous Postscript in the 2nd (...) edition of The Concept of Law (1994) might be rewritten to take into account responses to Dworkin other than those adopted by Hart in the Postscript. The alternative of a tentative form of prescriptive ‘hard’ legal positivism would better preserve the prescriptive ingredients evident in the 1st edition and assist in the regeneration of contemporary analytic legal philosophy within the Hartian traditionResumen:Este artículo propone una lectura de la primera edición de El concepto de derecho (1961), de H. L. A. Hart, en la cual se recuperan los elementos de prescripción moral que acompañan a la tesis descriptiva/explicativa que Hart explícitamente defendió. De tal modo, la tesis funcionalista del surgimiento de normas secundarias en sociedades complejas depende de la importancia de los beneficios sociales, relacionados con la justicia y la eficiencia, los cuales Hart suscribe. Después se llama la atención sobre la forma en que el Post Scriptum a la segunda edición de El concepto de derecho (1994), publicado póstumamente, podría ser reescrito para tomar en cuenta respuestas a Dworkin distintas a las que ofreció el propio Hart en su Post Scriptum. La alternativa de una forma tentativa de un positivismo jurídico prescriptivo “duro” conservaría de mucho mejor manera los ingredientes prescriptivos que son tan evidentes en la 1a edición, y contribuiría a la regeneración de una filosofía del derecho analítica contemporánea dentro de la tradición hartiana. (shrink)

This incisive book deals with the use of the criminal law to enforce morality, in particular sexual morality, a subject of particular interest and importance since the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957. Professor Hart first considers John Stuart Mill's famous declaration: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community is to prevent harm to others." During the last hundred years this doctrine has twice been sharply challenged by two great (...) lawyers: Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, the great Victorian judge and historian of the common law, and Lord Devlin, who both argue that the use of the criminal law to enforce morality is justified. The author examines their arguments in some detail, and sets out to demonstrate that they fail to recognize distinction of vital importance for legal and political theory, and that they espouse a conception of the function of legal punishment that few would now share. (shrink)

The Long Arc of Legality breaks the current deadlock in philosophy of law between legal positivism and natural law by showing that any understanding of law as a matter of authority must account for the interaction of enacted law with fundamental principles of legality. This interaction conditions law's content so that officials have the moral resources to answer the legal subject's question, 'But, how can that be law for me?' David Dyzenhaus brings Thomas Hobbes and Hans (...) Kelsen into a dialogue with H. L. A. Hart, showing that philosophy of law must work with the idea of legitimate authority and its basis in the social contract. He argues that the legality of international law and constitutional law are integral to the main tasks of philosophy of law, and that legal theory must attend both to the politics of legal space and to the way in which law provides us with a 'public conscience'. (shrink)

Nearly thirty years ago, Robert Alexy in his book The Concept and Validity of Law as well as in other early articles raised non-positivistic arguments in the Continental European tradition against legal positivism in general, which was assumed to be held by, among others, John Austin, Hans Kelsen and H.L.A. Hart. The core thesis of legal positivism that was being discussed among contemporary German jurists, just as with their Anglo- American counterparts, is the claim that there is (...) no necessary connection between law and morality. Robert Alexy has argued, however, that the law, besides consisting conceptually of elements of authoritative issuance and social efficacy, necessarily lays a claim to substantial correctness, which is derived from analytical arguments. Furthermore, if this claim to substantial correctness necessarily requires the incorporation of moral elements into law, then the ‘necessary connection thesis’, as defended by non-positivism, can be justified. Some of the most significant objections to this sort of claim, stemming from the Anglo-American world, are those introduced by Joseph Raz. In his ‘Reply’ to Robert Alexy, Raz raises at least three interesting criticisms, including, first, the ambiguity of ‘legal theory in the positivistic tradition’, second, the indeterminate formulations of the ‘separation thesis’, and, third, the necessary claim of law to legitimate authority as a moral claim. As a point of departure, I will argue that Raz’s three criticisms are misleading. For they do not enhance our understanding of the genuine compatibility or incompatibility between legal positivism and non-positivism. Despite the frequently reformulated theses of legal positivism and the various kinds of opponents responding thereto, the essential divergence between legal positivism and non-positivism was and remains the answer to the question of the relation between law and morality. Furthermore, I will clarify that in the strictest sense there can be three and only three logically possible positions concerning the relation between law and morality: the connection between them is either necessary, or impossible (i. e. they are necessarily separate), or contingent (i. e. they are neither necessarily connected nor necessarily separate). The first position is non-positivistic, while the latter two positions are, indeed, both positivistic, but in different forms: one may be called ‘exclusive’ legal positivism, the other ‘inclusive’ legal positivism. I will continue by showing that these three positions stand to one another in the relation of contraries, not contradictories, and that, taken together, they exhaust the logically possible positions concerning the relation between law and morality, never mind the tradition or authority from which these positions are derived. Raz mentions, however, many changeable formulations of the separation thesis, which even leads him to acknowledge ‘necessary connections between law and morality’. One who is trying to understand legal positivism would no doubt be puzzled by this claim. Nevertheless, I will argue that this is an alternative strategy of legal positivism, and it points to naturalistically oriented view. Although this necessary separation between law and morality, understood naturalistically, strikes one as strengthening the separation, in the end it leads to a weakened notion of necessity. This weakened necessary separation thesis, however, cannot be justified through the so-called claim of the law to legitimate authority, defended by Raz, for it is difficult to answer the question of whether a normally justified but factual authority can gain legitimate authority. Finally, the necessary connection between law and morality in a strong sense can still be justified by the claim of law to correctness, as per Alexy’s argument. (shrink)

This volume explores the reasons for Hans Kelsen’s lack of influence in the United States and proposes ways in which Kelsen’s approach to law, philosophy, and political, democratic, and international relations theory could be relevant to current debates within the U.S. academy in those areas. Along the way, the volume examines Kelsen’s relationship and often hidden influences on other members of the mid-century Central European émigré community whose work helped shape twentieth-century social science in the United States. The book (...) includes major contributions to the history of ideas and to the sociology of the professions in the U.S. academy in the twentieth century. Each section of the volume explores a different aspect of the puzzle of the neglect of Kelsen’s work in various disciplinary and national settings. Part I provides reconstructions of Kelsen’s legal theory and defends that theory against negative assessments in Anglo-American jurisprudence. Part II focuses both on Kelsen’s theoretical views on international law and his practical involvement in the post-war development of international criminal law. Part III addresses Kelsen’s theories of democracy and justice while placing him in dialogue with other major twentieth-century thinkers, including two fellow émigré scholars, Leo Strauss and Albert Ehrenzweig. Part IV explores Kelsen’s intellectual legacies through European and American perspectives on the interaction of Kelsen’s theoretical approach to law and national legal traditions in the United States and Germany. Each contribution features a particular applications of Kelsen’s approach to doctrinal and interpretive issues currently of interest in the legal academy. The volume concludes with two chapters on the nature of Kelsen’s legal theory as an instance of modernism. (shrink)

In Legality Scott Shapiro seeks to provide the motivation for the development of his own elaborate account of law by undertaking a critique of H.L.A. Hart's jurisprudential theory. Hart maintained that every legal system is underlain by a rule of recognition through which officials of the system identify the norms that belong to the system as laws. Shapiro argues that Hart's remarks on the rule of recognition are confused and that his model of lawis consequently untenable. Shapiro contends that (...) a new approach is vital for progress in the philosophy of law and, with his lengthy presentation of his own Planning Theory of Law, he aspires to pioneer just such an approach. Except for a very terse observation in the final main section, this article does not directly assess the strengths and shortcomings of Shapiro's piquant planning theory. Instead, I defend Hart against Shapiro's charges and thereby undermine the motivation for the development of the planning theory. (shrink)

H.L.A. Hart described his classic book, The Concept of Law, as a work in «descriptive sociology», and his aspiration was to produce a general jurisprudence. He was less than successful in achieving both of these aims. This article attempts a comprehensive reconstruction of legal positivism in a manner that will render it more compatible with a sociological approach, and more amenable to the project of general jurisprudence. The label «socio-legal positivism» reflects the fact that this article grafts the (...) insights and orientation of socio-legal theory onto the core tenets of legal positivism. In the course of this reconstruction, certain traditional views of legal positivists, especially those regarding the function of law and the nature of the concept of law, are discarded or modified. A number of Hart's key insights are preserved, but resituated within a broader framework. And the relationship between legal positivism and natural law is altered dramatically. The result of this reconstruction is the foundation for the construction of a general jurisprudence that better fits the complex and variable situation of law in society today. (shrink)

Quelle différence y a-t-il entre des règles de droit et des ordres appuyés de menaces? Qu'est-ce qu'une obligation juridique et en quoi se trouve-t-elle apparentée à une obligation morale? Quelle est la nature des règles et dans quelle mesure le droit consiste-t-il en des règles? Qu'est-ce que la justice et en quoi diffère-t-elle du reste de la morale?Au cours d'une discussion approfondie et séparée de ces problèmes récurrents, l'auteur relève une série d'éléments d'une importance essentielle pour la compréhension du (...) droit, et réalise un nouveau départ dans la théorie du droit. L'ouvrage comporte une nouvelle analyse des notions de validité juridique, de souveraineté, et de fondement d'un système juridique, un nouvel examen du droit naturel et du positivisme juridique, une discussion originale des limites du formalisme dans l'élaboration de la décision judiciaire, et un examen de la nature du droit international.Le texte est complété par des notes bibliographiques détaillées et la discussion de thèses émises par des auteurs contemporains et plus anciens. Cette deuxième édition s'accompagne en outre d'une postface posthume, publiée sous la responsabilité de P.A. Bulloch et J. Raz. (shrink)

It is well known that Hans Kelsen and Jürgen Habermas invoke realist arguments drawn from social science in defending an international, democratic human rights regime against Carl Schmitt’s attack on the rule of law. However, despite embracing the realist spirit of Kelsen’s legal positivism, Habermas criticizes Kelsen for neglecting to connect the rule of law with a concept of procedural justice (Part I). I argue, to the contrary (Part II), that Kelsen does connect these terms, albeit in a (...) manner that may be best described as functional, rather than conceptual. Indeed, whereas Habermas tends to emphasize a conceptual connection between law and morality, and has even been tempted by natural law arguments in developing his theory of jurisprudence (see Part IV), Kelsen is more receptive to arguments drawn from legal and political realism. Yet Habermas is hardly oblivious to these arguments, as can be seen from his recent acknowledgment that human rights that secure subsistence and development depend on ‘global domestic policy’ for their full enjoyment. This acknowledgment, I submit, brings Habermas’ legal philosophy closer to Kelsen’s monistic view that a supranational human rights regime must regulate political as well as purely legal matters (Part III). Given this stronger analogy between domestic and global institutions of governance, I argue (Part IV) that a global human rights regime must also incorporate features of constitutional review. Conceding this point, however, raises further questions about the insulation of international law from so-called extra-legal (political) influences. I conclude that not only do multicultural differences in understanding human rights (conflicts between legal paradigms) generate political problems for international courts but so do competing subsystems of international law. (shrink)

The article examines H.L.A. Hart's most important texts on classical natural law theory in order to assess his understanding of that theory. The author considers first the way of presenting the two meanings of the theory of natural law (namely, moral objectivity and the union of law and morals). Afterwards, he analyzes Hart's thought on the first thesis, especially on the teleology of human nature; then on the second one, especially on the meaning of the invalidity of (...) unjust laws. In both cases, the author compares Hart's understanding with the self understanding of natural lawyers, referring preferably to Aquinas and Finnis. The conclusion is that Hart misunderstood classical natural law theory in such a way that it warranted the suspicion that he did not have a first hand acquaintance with that theory. (shrink)

This is a collection of essays on themes of legal philosophy which have all been generated or affected by Hart's work. The topics covered include legal theory, responsibility, and enforcement of morals, with contributions from Ronald Dworkin, Rolf Sartorius, Neil MacCormach, David Lyons, Kent Greenawalt, Michael Moore, Joseph Raz, and C.L. Ten, among others.

The war between natural law philosophy and legal positivism is an ancient one. For a time the stunning victories of Bentham and Austin virtually drove the forces of natural law from the battlefield. However, upon the collapse of Germany and Japan at the end of the Second World War, natural law became a useful tool in attempting to resolve the practical difficulties of trying war criminals. This fact and the rise of two able antagonistic generals, H. (...) L. A. Hart and Lon Fuller, have sparked a new series of battles. (shrink)

The mark of ‘the political’, according to Bernard Williams, lies in a society finding an answer to the ‘first political question’—the ‘Hobbesian’ question of how to secure ‘order, protection, safety, trust, and the conditions of cooperation’. It is first because ‘solving it is the condition of solving, indeed posing, any others’. Williams also argues that a political order differs from an ‘unmediated coercive’ order in that it seeks to satisfy the ‘Basic Legitimation Demand’ that every legitimate state must satisfy if (...) it is to show that it wields authority over those subject to its rule. To meet that demand the state ‘has to be able to offer a justification of its power to each subject whom by its own lights it can rightfully coerce under its laws and institutions’. My paper argues that this set of issues is the central concern of legal theory and that, suprisingly, it is resources in the legal positivist theories of Hans Kelsen, H. L. A. Hart and Joseph Raz that can help us to see how a political order has to be constituted as a legal order before it becomes capable of answering the BLD. The argument is that the idea of acceptance in positivist legal theory imports the main components of the social contract tradition, which are necessary if law is to be understood as a matter of authority. Once imported, the central question for philosophy of law becomes the legal subject’s question, ‘But how can that be law for me?’. (shrink)

The war between natural law philosophy and legal positivism is an ancient one. For a time the stunning victories of Bentham and Austin virtually drove the forces of natural law from the battlefield. However, upon the collapse of Germany and Japan at the end of the Second World War, natural law became a useful tool in attempting to resolve the practical difficulties of trying war criminals. This fact and the rise of two able antagonistic generals, H. (...) L. A. Hart and Lon Fuller, have sparked a new series of battles. (shrink)

H.L.A. Hart says that The Concept of Law is focused on municipal or domestic law because that is the “central case”1 for the usage of the word ‘law.’ At the beginning of the book he states that “at various points in this book the reader will find discussions of the borderline cases where legal theorists have felt doubts about the application of the expression ‘law’ or ‘legal system,’ but the suggested resolution of these doubts, which he will also (...) find here, is only a secondary concern of the book.”2 Yet among those borderline cases there is one that is rather intriguing, since Hart closely discusses a particular instance of them: it is international law, to which he devotes an entire chapter—the final one—of The Concept of Law. My goal in this article is therefore to make clear why the ‘resolution’ of the borderline case of international law is not entirely ‘secondary’ to Hart’s overall project in The Concept of Law and, in so doing, to show that Chapter X is not as unhappy as many think it is. (shrink)

The paper discusses the Anglo-American philosophy of law of the 20th century, more specifically the philosophy of law of Ronald Myles Dworkin and his criticism of the legal positivism of Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart. The author presents the history of the criticism of legal positivism in Ronald Dworkin’s philosophy of law and distinguishes historical stages. The subject of the study is the critique of legal positivism but not the Hart-Dworkin debate itself, well known in Western philosophy of (...) law. The reason is that the discussion was conducted between Dworkin and Hart’s supporters but not between Dworkin and Hart by himself. The latter responded to the criticism only after twenty seven years. The article explains why Dworkin chose for his criticism Herbert Hart’s version of legal positivism. This is due to the fact that Dworkin highly appreciated Hart’s positivist theory of law and characterized it as the “most clear.” The article presents the methodological foundations of criticism of Hart’s legal positivism in Dworkin’s philosophy of law. It reveals a methodological divergence between the two legal theories, which directly affects the understanding of the concept of law and its content. Therefore, we can assume that the legal theories of Hart and Dworkin are two competing models of law: Dworkin’s model considers law as a set of rules and principles and Hart’s model acknowledges only rules and court decisions as a source of law. The article also presents the key principles of positivism criticized by Dworkin. These principles, firstly, interpret law as a set of legal rules determined through a special legal criterion, secondly, provide the judge with an opportunity to make a decision “at his own discretion” in a situation not regulated by law, and, thirdly, recognize only legal rights and obligations enshrined in legal regulations. It is important to note that in this article the author describes criticism as an independent phenomenon of legal philosophy with a particular focus on the history and foundations of this phenomenon. (shrink)

When we understand the ontological, political and legal underpinnings associated with the concept of freedom, liberty and rights, we understand the relationship between rights and laws. Rights can be understood as liberties or as laws. Liberties can be understood as de facto rights or as de jure rights. It is de jure rights that are recognized as laws that provide the basis for the rule of law. It is the rule of law that provides the basis for equal rights (...) and equal justice in an ideal republic. Rights, laws and the rule of law are distinct. Rights are self-evident truths. Laws are imperatives backed by sanctions (John Austin). The rule of law is a principle that purports that the recognition de facto and de jure rights provide the basis for political, social and economic justice. People live by the rights recognized by law. As such, the rule of law advocates two fundamental underpinnings in a republic: (1) the recognition of rights as the basis for equal rights and equal justice, and (2) the recognition of law as the basis for governance. (H.L.A. Hart). However, since the recognition of law is the recognition of rights, the recognition of rights precedes the governance by law principle. What is fundamental to the rule of law is that it recognizes rights, legitimizes political rule and administers equal/blind justice (Meyers, 1213). As such, no branch of government can weaponize laws to terminate recognized individual rights. The maxim of the republic should be – while anyone can be the ruler, everyone lives as free as the ruler. Majority rule and protection of self-evident individual rights is fundamental to an ideal republic. Keywords: law, equal rights, equal justice, impunity, rule of law. (shrink)

This classic collection of essays, first published in 1968, represents H.L.A. Hart's landmark contribution to the philosophy of criminal responsibility and punishment. Unavailable for ten years, this new edition reproduces the original text, adding a new critical introduction by John Gardner, a leading contemporary criminal law theorist.

Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart was born in Yorkshire in 1907 to second generation Jewish immigrants. Having won a scholarship to Oxford University, he went on to become the most famous legal philosopher of the twentieth century. From 1932-40 H.L.A Hart practised as a barrister in London. He was pronounced physically unfit for military service in 1940, and was recruited by MI5, where he worked until 1945. During his time at the Bar he had continued to study philosophy and at (...) M15 his interest was further stimulated by his philosopher colleagues in M16, Stuart Hampshire and Gilbert Ryle. After the war, Hart returned to Oxford to take up a philosophy fellowship, later to become Professor of Jurisprudence. H.L.A Hart single-handedly reinvented the philosophy of law and influenced the nation's thinking in the 1960s on abortion, the legalization of homosexuality, and on capital punishment. Hart's approach to legal philosophy was at once disarmingly simple and breathtakingly ambitious, combining as it did the insights of Austin and Bentham and the new linguistic philosophy of J.L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He sought to elucidate a concept of law which would be of relevance to all forms of law, wherever or whenever they arose: his bestselling book, The Concept of Law, has sold tens of thousands of copies worldwide. In 1941, he married Jenifer Williams (a high-ranking civil servant, later an Oxford academic) with whom he had four children. Their relationship was an enduring if unconventional one. In the early 1950s, Jenifer was rumoured to be having a long-standing affair with Isaiah Berlin, one of Hart's closest friends. She was also, falsely, accused by the Sunday Times of having been a Russian spy, an allegation which was all the more scandalous given Hart's position at MI5 during the War. Nicola Lacey draws on Hart's previously unpublished diaries and letters to reveal a complex inner life. Outwardly successful, Hart was in fact tormented by doubts about his intellectual abilities, his sexual identity and his capacity to form close relationships. Her biography also sheds fascinating light on the origins of his ideas, and assesses his overall contribution. Above all, it chronicles of a life which had a depth ands impact far greater than many of Hart's readers have realized. (shrink)

Law is traditionally related to the practice of command and hierarchy. It seems that a legal rule should immediately establish a relation between a superior and an inferior. This hierarchical and authoritharian view might however be challenged once the phenomenology of the rule is considered from the internal point of view, that is, from the stance of those that can be said to “use” rather than to “suffer” the rules themselves. A practice oriented approach could in this way open (...) up a more liberal, and also somehow less parochial and ideological, road for legal theory. This is – it is argued in the paper – the programme, or better, the promise we can find in Herbert Hart’s main work, The Concept of Law. The article tries to render this promise more transparent while, nonetheless, not eschewing the blind sides of its narrative and argumentative strategy. (shrink)

In this brief introduction, I shall rather reflect, from a biographer’s viewpoint, on the significance of Discretion for our understanding of the trajectory of Hart’s ideas and on the significance of his year at Harvard. I shall then move on to consider the intriguing question of why Hart did not subsequently publish or build on some of the key insights in the paper itself. Here I highlight the fact that, almost uniquely in Hart’s work, Discretion features a notable emphasis on (...) the significance of institutional factors in our understanding of the nature of legal decisionmaking; and I argue that Hart’s failure fully to develop this insight in the essay, or to build on it in his subsequent work, derives from the fact that such a development would have necessitated a diversion from the philosophical issues that were his core intellectual concern, and moreover would have presented certain dangers to his conception of legal positivism. I shall conclude by considering what contribution the essay makes to our overall interpretation and evaluation of Hart’s legal philosophy. (shrink)

A correct understanding of Hart’s idea of justice and a detailed assessment of the connection between justice and law contributes to a better understanding of his legal-philosophical project. Always consistent with his argument on the separability between law and morality, Hart endorses an account of formal intralegal justice that is intimately connected to law, but not necessarily dependent upon non-legal principles of substantive justice. Hart’s theoretical commitment to a composite concept of formal justice encompasses two elements: first, the (...) imperative to treat like cases alike and different cases differently, and second, the underlying legal criteria that specify the relevant measure of likeness and difference. These elements of Hart’s theory of justice can be traced back to their doctrinal precedents in the texts of Aristotle, Sidgwick, Perelman, Ross, and Del Vecchio. Commentators and critics of Hart’s account of justice seem to agree that this account ought to be expanded by exploring its full effects on the foundations of Hart’s concept of law. When this is achieved, a third element of Hart’s intralegal justice emerges, namely, its rights-allocating function, which is deeply embedded in his account of the rule of recognition, his concept of a legal system, and his idea of law. (shrink)

Introduction: From legal realism to naturalized jurisprudence -- A note on legal indeterminacy -- Part I. American legal realism and its critics -- Rethinking legal realism: toward a naturalized jurisprudence (1997) -- Legal realism and legal positivism reconsidered (2001) -- Is there an "American" jurisprudence? (1997) -- Postscript to Part I: Interpreting legal realism -- Part II. Ways of naturalizing jurisprudence -- Legal realism, hard positivism, and the limits of conceptual analysis (1998, (...) 2001) -- Why Quine is not a postmodernist (1997) -- Beyond the Hart/Dworkin debate: the methodology problem in jurisprudence (2003) -- Part III. Naturalism, morality, and objectivity -- Moral facts and best explanations (2001) -- Objectivity, morality, and adjudication (2001) -- Law and objectivity (2002). (shrink)

Hans Kelsen est, sans conteste, le juriste le plus important de ce siècle. Il n'y a pas une seule question de théorie juridique qu'on puisse traiter aujourd'hui sans examiner d'abord l'analyse qu'il en fait, mais son œuvre ne concerne pas seulement le droit et la philosophie du droit ; elle touche aussi la philosophie politique, l'épistémologie, l'éthique ou la logique. Sa théorie du droit représente, à côté du réalisme, l'une des deux branches du juspositivisme moderne, connue sous le nom (...) de normativisme et que lui-même appelait " Théorie pure du droit ". Elle se donne comme une théorie scientifique qui se borne à décrire son objet, le droit positif, et qui donc est " pure " de tout jugement de valeur. La pureté ne concerne toutefois que la méthodologie. Le droit, lui, n'est nullement pur, car il exprime des choix moraux et politiques. La doctrine kelsenienne pure apparaît ainsi doublement politique : d'une part, elle se donne pour tâche de mettre en évidence la fonction idéologique du droit ; d'autre part, dans la mesure où elle analyse les dispositifs juridiques comme des moyens au service de certaines fins, elle peut servir de fondement à une véritable technologie juridique. C'est cette technologie que Kelsen prétendait appliquer à la politique et qui fonde aussi bien son travail de constituant - il est le père de la Constitution autrichienne et de la première Cour constitutionnelle - que ses écrits sur la démocratie. La Théorie générale du droit et de l'Etat présente à cet égard un intérêt exceptionnel. Elle a été écrite aux Etats-Unis, où Kelsen s'était réfugié au début de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Comme le souligne Stanley L. Paulson dans son introduction, elle constitue une étape marquante dans l'évolution de sa pensée entre le néokantisme des origines et l'empirisme des derniers écrits. C'est aussi une présentation claire, systématique et concentrée de l'ensemble de sa doctrine et c'est le seul ouvrage de Kelsen qui porte à la fois sur les conditions de possibilité d'une science empirique du droit, sur la théorie générale du droit au sens strict - l'analyse structurale de tous les ordres juridiques possibles - et sur la théorie générale de l'Etat - l'analyse des concepts constitutifs de tout Etat possible. (shrink)

It has become increasingly popular to argue that legal positivism is actually a normative theory, and that it cannot be purely descriptive and morally neutral as H.L.A. Hart has suggested. This article purports to disprove this line of thought. It argues that legal positivism is best understood as a descriptive, morally neutral, theory about the nature of law. The article distinguishes between five possible views about the relations between normative claims and legal positivism, arguing that some (...) of them are not at odds with Hart’s thesis about the nature of jurisprudence, while the others are wrong, both as expositions of legal positivism or as critiques of it. Legal positivism does not necessarily purport to justify any aspect of its subject matter, nor is it committed to any particular moral or political evaluations. (shrink)

The volume brings together a collection of original papers on some of the main tenets of Joseph Raz's legal and political philosophy: Legal positivism and the nature of law, practical reason, authority, the value of equality, incommensurability, harm, group rights, and multiculturalism. James Griffin and Yael Tamir raise questions concerning Raz's notion of group rights and its application to claims of cultural and political autonomy, while Will Kymlicka and Bernhard Peters examine Raz's theory of multicultural society. Lukas (...) Meyer investigates the applicability of the notion of harm in the intergenerational context. Other papers are devoted to fundamental theoretical tenets of Raz's work. Hillel Steiner and Andrei Marmor examine Raz's account of value pluralism and incommensurability in light of what these authors consider to be goods whose equal distribution must be valued for its own sake. Robert Alexy and Timothy Endicott discuss traditional issues of jurisprudence and legal philosphy with special attention to Raz's contribution. Rüdiger Bittner, Bruno Celano, and J. E. Penner discuss and criticize aspects of Raz's theory of practical reason. Jeremy Waldron presents a critique of Raz's interpretation of authority.This volume concludes with a chapter by Joseph Raz in which he responds to arguments in the foregoing essays. (shrink)

Shortlisted for the 2005 British Academy Book prize, Nicola Lacey's entrancing biography recounts the life of H.L.A. Hart, the pre-eminent legal philosopher of the twentieth century. Following Hart's life from modest origins as the son of Jewish tailor parents in Yorkshire to worldwide fame as the most influential English-speaking legal theorist of the post-War era, the book traces his successive metamorphoses; from Yorkshire schoolboy to Oxford scholar, from government intelligence officer to Professor of Jurisprudence, from awkward batchelor to (...) family figurehead. In the tradition of Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein, Nicola Lacey paints an absorbing picture of intellectual and psychological development, of a mind struggling to cope with intellectual self-doubt, uncertain sexuality, a difficult marriage and an anti-semitic society. In depicting the evolution of Hart's life and mind, Lacey provides a vivid recreation of both the intellectual and social climate of Oxford in the post-War era. (shrink)

In his introduction to these closely linked essays Professor Hart offers both an exposition and a critical assessment of some central issues in jurisprudence and political theory. Some of the essays touch on themes to which little attention has been paid, such as Bentham's identification of the forms of mysitification protecting the law from criticism; his relation to Beccaria; and his conversion to democratic radicalism and a passionate admiration for the United States.

The article discusses the link between freedom, crime and punishment. According to some theorists, crime does not only cause a person to have less freedom; it constitutes, _in and of itself_, a breach of the freedom of others. Punishment does not only cause people to have more freedom, for instance by preventing crimes; it constitutes, _in and of itself_, respect for mutual freedom. If the latter claims are true, crime and punishment must have certain _meanings_ that make them denials/affirmations of (...) freedom irrespective of their consequences. My aim is to show that such an immanent connection between crime/punishment and freedom exists. I do so by explicating the “natural meaning” of crime and punishment. This way of addressing the topic is inspired by Jean Hampton’s use of H. P. Grice’s concept of natural meaning. Expanding on Hampton’s theory, drawing on both H. L. A. Hart and Kant, I argue that crime has the natural meaning of denying freedom, and punishment has the natural meaning of affirming freedom. The paper presents an ideal theory, not a justification for actual criminal justice practices, which in most countries unfortunately fail to instantiate the value of mutual freedom. (shrink)

For the past four decades, Anglo-American legal philosophy has been preoccupied – some might say obsessed – with something called the “Hart-Dworkin” debate. Since the appearance in 1967 of “The Model of Rules I,” Ronald Dworkin’s seminal critique of H.L.A. Hart’s theory of legal positivism, countless books and articles have been written either defending Hart against Dworkin’s objections or defending Dworkin against Hart’s defenders. My purpose in this essay is not to declare an ultimate victor; rather it is (...) to identify precisely the core issue around which the debate is organized. Is the Hart-Dworkin debate, for example, about whether the law contains principles, as well as rules? Or does it concern whether judges have discretion in hard cases? Is it about the proper way to interpret legal texts in the American legal system? Or is it about the very possibility of conceptual jurisprudence? Although trying to capture the essence of a philosophical debate can be tricky, I think that there is an important unity to the Hart-Dworkin debate that can be described in a relatively straightforward manner. I suggest that the debate is organized around one of the most profound issues in the philosophy of law, namely, the relation between legality and morality. Dworkin’s basic strategy throughout the course of the debate has been to argue that, in one form or another, legality is ultimately determined not by social facts alone, but by moral facts as well. This contention directly challenges, and threatens to undermine, the positivist picture about the nature of law, in which legality is never determined by morality, but solely by social practice. As one might expect, the response by Hart and his followers has been to argue that this dependence of legality on morality is either merely apparent or does not, in fact, undermine the social foundations of law. The Hart-Dworkin debate, I also try to show, is not a monolithic entity. In the second half of the paper, I describe how Dworkin modified his critique to circumvent the responses of Hart’s followers, thereby inaugurating a new phase in the debate. Virtually no attention, however, has been paid to this latter challenge, which is especially surprising given that none of the previous positivistic defenses are helpful against it. I then sketch out a possible response positivists might offer to this extremely powerful objection. (shrink)

Surveying developments in a quarter-century of Anglophone legal philosophy, Leslie Green argues that there has been progress in some problems, such as the understanding of rules and reasons in the law; that in other areas —in particular, in discussions of the relationship between law and morality— there has been a marked narrowing of attention; and that with respect to the relationship between law and coercion, we have advanced very little beyond HLA Hart’s 1961 argument against reductionism. Here, we have (...) lost sight of one of the reasons for attending to the coercive aspect of law in the first place: that this is the most obvious way that law exercises power. Finally, the recent ‘methodological turn’ in jurisprudence is examined. To its benefit, the subject has become more self-conscious about its own status and methods. The paper concludes by exploring Dworkin’s revival of Fuller’s idea that a theory of law must be potentially useful to a lawyer or judge. Resisting this view, Green holds that while law is practical, a theory of the nature of law must answer to the truth about law. Unlike law itself, jurisprudence must be true in order to be good.Resumen:Al sopesar los avances de la filosofía jurídica angloparlante durante 25 años, Leslie Green sostiene que ha habido progreso en algunos problemas, como el del entendimiento de las reglas y las razones en el derecho; mientras que en otras áreas —en particular, en las discusiones sobre la relación entre el derecho y la moral— ha habido un desinterés creciente; y que con respecto a la relación entre el derecho y la coacción, se ha avanzado muy poco desde aquel argumento que H. L. A. Hart presentara, en 1961, contra el reduccionismo. En este punto se ha perdido de vista una de las razones centrales para ocuparse del aspecto coactivo del derecho: que ésta es la manera más directa en que el derecho ejerce su poder. Por último, el autor examina el reciente “giro metodológico” dentro de la filosofía del derecho; por fortuna, la materia ahora tiene más conciencia en cuanto a su estatus y a sus métodos. El ensayo concluye explorando la manera en que Dworkin retoma la idea de Fuller de que la teoría del derecho debe tener la capacidad de ser útil a los abogados y a los jueces. En contraste con esta perspectiva, Green aduce que si bien el derecho es práctico, una teoría sobre la naturaleza del derecho debe elaborarse en función de la verdadera naturaleza del derecho. A diferencia del derecho, la filosofía del derecho tiene que ser verdadera para ser buena. (shrink)

Hans Kelsen’s (1881-1973) teaching in law covers studies in such topics as the general theory of law, legal philosophy, the general teaching of law, constitutional, administrative and international law. He was also the author of the Austrian Constitution, designed in 1920. Among many of his publications is the Comment of the Charter of the United Nations, published in 1950 in New York City. Among numerous Hans Kelsen’s publications, translated into many languages, the best known, which has made (...) the greatest impact, is his book ‘Pure Theory of Law’, first published in 1934, and the second edition appeared in 1960 together with attachment ‘The Justice Problem’. In particular, a comprehensive legal and policy issue in 1929 appears in Kelsen’s work ‚On the Nature and Value of Democracy‘. Pure Theory of Law is a theory of positive law, the science that reads positive law only into normative sense. Kelsen eliminates any non-normative approach. His science of law is based on the legal positivism and leads to the neutrality of government valuables and indifferent provisions of individual. Kelsen disclaims any ‘over-positive law’ (Recht präpositives), as well as from the natural law. Therefore, the Pure Theory of Law fits for totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. (shrink)

H. L. A. Hart’s The Concept of Law (Hart 1994) contains many passages that have become iconic for legal theory. This essay focuses on Chapter 7, sections 1 and 2, and Hart’s comments about judicial discretion in the context of Ronald Dworkin’s well-known attack on the idea of judicial discretion in his essay “The Model of Rules”. Specifically, the paper undertakes three projects. The first project is to defend the importance of the fundamental picture that Hart presents in Concept, (...) Chapter 7 of Common-Law judicial rule-making. Hart represents such rule-making as a balance of certainty and flexibility, and he is correct to do that. The second project is to argue that Dworkin’s attack on the positivist model of common-law judicial rule-making as an exercise of “strong discretion” fails. The idea, central to the meaning of “strong discretion” that courts are not “not bound by standards set by the authority in question” cannot be established. The third is to argue that Hart is his own worst enemy. The language, metaphors and images he uses to present his account of common-law judicial rule-making open the way to Dworkin’s critique. They also reveal Hart, if the language, metaphors and images are taken seriously, to be precisely the kind of formalist or deductivist about adjudication that he is ostensibly in Concept Chapter 7 criticising.Resumen:El concepto de derecho (1994) de H. L. A. Hart, contiene muchos pasajes que se han convertido en íconos de la teoría jurídica. Este artículo se concentra en el capítulo 7, sección 1 y 2, y en los comentarios que realizara Hart sobre la discreción judicial en el contexto de la bien conocida crítica de Dworkin a esta misma idea en su ensayo “El modelo de las normas”. Específicamente, el artículo emprende tres proyectos. El primero de ellos consiste en defender la importancia del esquema fundamental que ofrece Hart en el capítulo 7 de su obra, esto es, la creación judicial de normas en el Common Law. Hart representa tal creación de normas como un balance de certeza y flexibilidad; y él está en lo correcto al presentarlo de tal modo. El segundo proyecto consiste en argumentar que la crítica de Dworkin al modelo positivista de la creación judicial de normas en el Common Law, como un ejercicio de “discreción fuerte”, no está sustentada. La idea —central para el significado de “discreción fuerte”— de que los tribunales no están “sujetos a criterios establecidos por la autoridad en cuestión” no puede ser establecida. El tercer proyecto consiste en argumentar que Hart es su peor enemigo. El lenguaje, las metáforas e imágenes que emplea para exponer su teoría de la creación judicial de normas en el Common Law abre la puerta a la crítica dworkiniana. Si tomamos en serio el lenguaje, las metáforas y las imágenes, encontraremos a un Hart del tipo formalista o deductivista sobre la adjudicación, justo como el que él mismo está abiertamente cuestionando en el capítulo 7 de El concepto. (shrink)

The volume brings together a collection of original papers on some of the main tenets of Joseph Raz's legal and political philosophy: Legal positivism and the nature of law, practical reason, authority, the value of equality, incommensurability, harm, group rights, and multiculturalism.