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The Concept of Law is a 1961 book by the legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart and his most famous work. [1] The Concept of Law presents Hart's theory of legal positivism—the view that laws are rules made by humans and that there is no inherent or necessary connection between law and morality—within the framework of analytic philosophy.
Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart FBA (/ h ɑːr t /; 18 July 1907 – 19 December 1992) was a British legal philosopher.One of the most influential legal theorists of the 20th century, he was instrumental in the development of the theory of legal positivism, which was popularised by his book, The Concept of Law.
But to be a valid rule, the legal system of which the rule is a component must, as a whole, be effective. According to Hart, any rule that complies with the rule of recognition is a valid legal rule. For example, if the rule of recognition were "what Professor X says is law", then any rule that Professor X spoke would be a valid legal rule.
A pupil of Hart's, Joseph Raz was important in continuing Hart's arguments of legal positivism after Hart's death. This included editing in 1994 a second edition of Hart's The Concept of Law, with an additional section including Hart's responses to other philosophers' criticisms of his work. [35]
In The Concept of Law, H. L. A. Hart argued that law is a "system of rules"; [35] John Austin said law was "the command of a sovereign, backed by the threat of a sanction"; [36] Ronald Dworkin describes law as an "interpretive concept" to achieve justice in his text titled Law's Empire; [37] and Joseph Raz argues law is an "authority" to ...
In Holmes's mind, therefore, it was most useful to define "the law" as a prediction of what will bring punishment or other consequences from a court. The theory played a key role in influencing American legal realism. H. L. A. Hart criticized the theories in his The Concept of Law (1961). He argued that (1) they were blind to the internal point ...
The Hart–Dworkin debate is a debate in legal philosophy between H. L. A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin. At the heart of the debate lies a Dworkinian critique of Hartian legal positivism, specifically, the theory presented in Hart's book The Concept of Law. While Hart insists that judges are within bounds to legislate on the basis of rules of law ...
Hart argued that the law should be understood as a system of social rules. In The Concept of Law, Hart rejected Kelsen's views that sanctions were essential to law and that a normative social phenomenon, like law, cannot be grounded in non-normative social facts. Hart claimed that law is the union of primary rules and secondary rules. [46]