Book contents
- The Long Arc of Legality
- The Long Arc of Legality
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The Puzzle of Very Unjust Law I
- 2 The Puzzle of Very Unjust Law II
- 3 The Constitution of Legal Authority / The Authority of Legal Constitutions
- 4 The Janus-Faced Constitution
- 5 The Politics of Legal Space
- 6 Legality’s Promise
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2022
- The Long Arc of Legality
- The Long Arc of Legality
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The Puzzle of Very Unjust Law I
- 2 The Puzzle of Very Unjust Law II
- 3 The Constitution of Legal Authority / The Authority of Legal Constitutions
- 4 The Janus-Faced Constitution
- 5 The Politics of Legal Space
- 6 Legality’s Promise
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Philosophy of law has long been in a state of deadlock, unable to make progress in solving the puzzle of law’s authority – that law is both a matter of right and might. This book seeks to break the deadlock.1 It does so by going back to the work of HLA Hart, who in 1958 set solving that puzzle as the main task for legal theory in ‘Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals’ with his lapidary claim: ‘Law surely is more than the gunman situation writ large’.2 I argue that the task can be accomplished through exploiting the rich resources in Hart’s own legal theory. But I do so in a way closed to him by the idea he claimed was central to his tradition in his 1958 manifesto for legal positivism: his Separation Thesis that there is no necessary connection between law and morality.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Long Arc of LegalityHobbes, Kelsen, Hart, pp. 1 - 40Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022