This new edition includes a substantial postscript by the author, in which he responds to thirty years of discussion, criticism and further work in the field to ...

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition.

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 Concept of Law is one of the most influential texts in English-language jurisprudence. 50 years after its first publication its relevance has not diminished and in this third edition, Leslie Green adds an introduction that places the book in a contemporary context, highlighting key questions about Hart's arguments and outlining the main debates it has prompted in the field. The complete text of the second edition is replicated here, including Hart's Postscript, with fully updated notes to include modern references (...) and further reading. (shrink)

The Concept of Law is the most important and original work of legal philosophy written this century. First published in 1961, it is considered the masterpiece of H.L.A. Hart's enormous contribution to the study of jurisprudence and legal philosophy. Its elegant language and balanced arguments have sparked wide debate and unprecedented growth in the quantity and quality of scholarship in this area--much of it devoted to attacking or defending Hart's theories. Principal among Hart's critics is renowned lawyer and political philosopher (...) Ronald Dworkin who in the 1970s and 80s mounted a series of challenges to Hart's Concept of Law. It seemed that Hart let these challenges go unanswered until, after his death in 1992, his answer to Dworkin's criticism was discovered among his papers. In this valuable and long-awaited new edition Hart presents an Epilogue in which he answers Dworkin and some of his other most influential critics including Fuller and Finnis. Written with the same clarity and candor for which the first edition is famous, the Epilogue offers a sharper interpretation of Hart's own views, rebuffs the arguments of critics like Dworkin, and powerfully asserts that they have based their criticisms on a faulty understanding of Hart's work. Hart demonstrates that Dworkin's views are in fact strikingly similar to his own. In a final analysis, Hart's response leaves Dworkin's criticisms considerably weakened and his positions largely in question. Containing Hart's final and powerful response to Dworkin in addition to the revised text of the original Concept of Law, this thought-provoking and persuasively argued volume is essential reading for lawyers and philosophers throughout the world. (shrink)

Tthis book is likely to receive its warmest reception form advanced students of the philosophy of law, who will welcome the relief provided from the frequently sterile tone of much recent work in the field.

One of the remarkable features of the turmoil surrounding the counting and recounting of votes in the State of Florida in the 2000 US Presidential Election was the frequency with which "the Rule of Law" was invoked. Whether the antagonists in Florida knew it or not, they are in fact aspects of a venerable heritage of contestation that comes down to us as part and parcel of the Rule-of-Law tradition. The fact that "the Rule of Law" has always evoked this (...) contestation has led some to surmise that an old article by a linguistic philosopher, W.B. Gallie, entitled, "Essentially Contested Concepts" might afford the most fruitful basis for approaching the analysis of the term. (shrink)

Practical Reason and Norms focuses on three problems: In what way are rules normative, and how do they differ from ordinary reasons? What makes normative systems systematic? What distinguishes legal systems, and in what consists their normativity? All three questions are answered by taking reasons as the basic normative concept, and showing the distinctive role reasons have in every case, thus paving the way to a unified account of normativity. Rules are a structure of reasons to perform the required act (...) and an exclusionary reason not to follow some competing reasons. Exclusionary reasons are explained, and used to unlock the secrets of orders, promises, and decisions as well as rules. Games are used to exemplify normative systems. Inevitably, the analysis extends to some aspects of normative discourse, which is truth-apt, but with a diminished assertoric force. (shrink)

Legitimate authority -- The claims of law -- Legal positivism and the sources of law -- Legal reasons, sources, and gaps -- The identity of legal systems -- The institutional nature of law -- Kelsen's theory of the basic norm -- Legal validity -- The functions of law -- Law and value in adjudication -- The rule of law and its virtue -- The obligation to obey the law -- Respect for law -- A right to dissent? : civil disobedience (...) -- A right to dissent? : conscientious objection --The purity of the pure theory -- The argument from justice, or how not to reply to legal positivism. (shrink)

In the past twenty years Joseph Raz has consolidated his reputation as one of the most acute, inventive, and energetic scholars currently at work in analytic moral and political theory. This new collection of essays forms a representative selection of his most significant contributions to a number of important debates, including the extent of political duty and obligation, and the issue of self-determination. He also examines aspects of the common (and ancient) theme of the relations between law and morality. This (...) volume of essays, available in one volume for the first time, will be essential to legal philosophers and political theorists. (shrink)

The paper deals with the possibility of a theory of the nature of law as such, a theory which will be necessarily true of all law. It explores the relations between explanations of concepts and of the things they are concepts of, the possibility that the law has essential properties, and the possibility that the law changes its nature over time, and that what is law at a given place and time depends on the culture and concepts of that place (...) and time. It also considers the possibility of understanding the institutions, such as the law, of cultures whose concepts are alien to us. The position advocated offers a reconciliation of ways in which a theory of the nature of law is parochial with its claim to be universal. (shrink)

In this paper, I make an attempt to look for a thin and general concept of law that, as far as possible, should be neutral to the more substantial views of legal moralism and legal positivism, so that it is acceptable from both points of view. With this aim in view, I shall begin with a few remarks on concept formation and name a list of necessary requirements on an appropriate concept of law. On this basis, I intend to discuss (...) a number of contemporary legal theories in view to their respective interpretations of the concept of law. Finally, I want to propose a definition of law that not only satisfies the requirements of the concept of law, but is also general enough to be compatible with both camps of legal thinking. (shrink)

In this paper I outline various different objects of investigation that may be picked out by word “law” (or its cognates). All of these objects must be investigated in an integrated way before one can provide a complete philosophical explanation of the nature of law. I begin with the distinction between laws (artefacts) and law (the genre to which the artefacts belong). This leads me to the distinction between the law (of a particular legal system) and law (the genre of (...) artefacts). Then I discuss the contrast between law (the genre of artefacts) and law (the practice). Finally I comment on legality as the name of an ideal for laws and legal systems to live up to. I commend H. L. A. Hart's explanation of the nature of law for investigating these various objects in an integraed way, while nevertheless respecting the distinctions among them. I also criticise some of R. M. Dworkin's work for failing to respect the same distinctions. (shrink)

I argue that there is methodological space for a functional explanation of the nature of law that does not commit the theorist to a view about the value of that function for society, nor whether law is the best means of accomplishing it. A functional explanation will nonetheless provide a conceptual framework for a better understanding of the nature of law. First I examine the proper role for function in a theory of law and then argue for the possibility of (...) a neutral functional theory, addressing issues raised by Leslie Green, Stephen Perry, Michael Moore and John Finnis. (shrink)

Abstract: We sometimes say our moral claims are "objectively true," or are "right, even if nobody believes it." These additional claims are often taken to be staking out metaethical positions, representative of a certain kind of theorizing about morality that "steps outside" the practice in order to comment on its status. Ronald Dworkin has argued that skepticism about these claims so understood is not tenable because it is impossible to step outside such practices. I show that externally skeptical metaethical theory (...) can withstand his attacks, thereby defending the possibility of this kind of metatheoretical method and showing that the additional objectivity claims still make sense as external claims. Four interpretations of the additional objectivity claims can still be understood externally: as secondary properties, as arguing for some form of causal correspondence, as explaining error, and under Blackburn's expressivism. In the end, Dworkin's argument can be turned against itself. (shrink)

Several years ago I prepared a point-by-point response to this postscript as a working paper for the NYU Colloquium in Legal, Moral and Political Philosophy. I have not yet published that paper, but I understand that copies of it are in circulation. I do not intend to recapitulate the arguments of that working paper, but instead to concentrate on one aspect of Hart's Postscript, which is his defence of Archimedean jurisprudence. I shall have something to say about his own legal (...) philosophy, which was a form of legal positivism. But I shall mainly be concerned about the method that he said generated his legal positivism. (shrink)

Jules Coleman, one of the world's most influential philosophers of law, here expounds his recent views on a range of important issues in legal theory. Coleman offers for the first time an explicit account of the pragmatist method that has long informed his work, and takes on the views of highly respected contemporaries such as Ronald Dworkin and Joseph Raz.

If Raz and Dworkin disagree over how law should be characterised,how are we, their jurisprudential public, supposed to go about adjudicating between the rival theories which they offer us? To what considerations would those theorists themselves appeal in order to convince us that their accounts of law are accurate and successful? Moreover, what is it that makes an account of law successful? Evaluation and Legal Theory tackles methodological or meta-theoretical issues such as these, and does so via attempting to answer (...) the question: to what extent, and in what sense, must a legal theorist make value judgements about his data in order to construct a successful theory of law? Dispelling the obfuscatory myth that legal positivism seeks a 'value-free' account of law, the author attempts to explain and defend Joseph Razs position that evaluation is essential to successful legal theory, whilst refuting John Finnis and Ronald Dworkins contentions that the legal theorist must morally evaluate and morally justify the law in order to properly explain its nature. The book does not claim to solve the many mysteries of meta-legal theory but does seek to contribute to and engender rigorous and focused debate on this topic. (shrink)

In this reprint of Law's Empire,Ronald Dworkin reflects on the nature of the law, its given authority, its application in democracy, the prominent role of interpretation in judgement, and the relations of lawmakers and lawgivers to the community on whose behalf they pronounce. For that community, Law's Empire provides a judicious and coherent introduction to the place of law in our lives.Previously Published by Harper Collins. Reprinted (1998) by Hart Publishing.

William Connolly presents a lucid and concise defense of the thesis of "essentially contested concepts" that can well be read as a general introduction to political theory, as well as for its challenge to the prevailing understanding of political discourse. In Connolly's view, the language of politics is not a neutral medium that conveys ideas independently formed but an institutionalized structure of meanings that channels political thought and action in certain directions. In the new preface he pursues the implications of (...) this perspective for a distinctive conception of ethics and democracy. (shrink)

In the course of that critical study he discusses the work of many of the most influential lawyers and philosophers of the era, including Isaiah Berlin, Richard ...