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Articles 1 - 8 of 8
Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence
How Practices Make Principles, And How Principles Make Rules, Mitchell N. Berman
How Practices Make Principles, And How Principles Make Rules, Mitchell N. Berman
All Faculty Scholarship
The most fundamental question in general jurisprudence concerns what makes it the case that the law has the content that it does. This article offers a novel answer. According to the theory it christens “principled positivism,” legal practices ground legal principles, and legal principles determine legal rules. This two-level account of the determination of legal content differs from Hart’s celebrated theory in two essential respects: in relaxing Hart’s requirement that fundamental legal notions depend for their existence on judicial consensus; and in assigning weighted contributory legal norms—“principles”—an essential role in the determination of legal rights, duties, powers, and permissions. Drawing …
Our Principled Constitution, Mitchell N. Berman
Our Principled Constitution, Mitchell N. Berman
All Faculty Scholarship
Suppose that one of us contends, and the other denies, that transgender persons have constitutional rights to be treated in accord with their gender identity. It appears that we are disagreeing about “what the law is.” And, most probably, we disagree about what the law is on this matter because we disagree about what generally makes it the case that our constitutional law is this rather than that.
Constitutional theory should provide guidance. It should endeavor to explain what gives our constitutional rules the contents that they have, or what makes true constitutional propositions true. Call any such account a …
Legal Positivism And Russell's Paradox, David G. Carlson
Legal Positivism And Russell's Paradox, David G. Carlson
Articles
In this Article, I argue that legal positivism is subject to the same paradox as was engendered by Frege's set theory-a paradox that has come to be known as Russell's Paradox. Basically, Frege tried to define what a set is. Russell showed that, because of self-reference, any attempt to define the word "set" led to formal condition. I argue that Russell's analysis can be applied to legal positivism, if "legal positivism" is defined to mean that a complete and closed rule of recognition for law is a logical possibility. I also argue that, to the extent legal positivism claims that …
Legal Positivism As An Idea About Morality, Martin J. Stone
Legal Positivism As An Idea About Morality, Martin J. Stone
Articles
I ask what a proper critical target for 'legal positivism' might be. I argue that utilitarian moral theory, and more generally fully directive moral theories, are unacknowledged motivations for legal positivism. Contemporary debate about 'the nature of law' is, historically speaking, much more of a footnote to utilitarianism than has been recognized.
A Path Not Taken: Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory Of Law In The Land Of Legal Realists, D. A. Jeremy Telman
A Path Not Taken: Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory Of Law In The Land Of Legal Realists, D. A. Jeremy Telman
Law Faculty Publications
This Essay is a contribution to a volume on the influence of Hans Kelsen’s legal theory in over a dozen countries. The Essay offers four explanations for the failure of Kelsen’s pure theory of law to take hold in the United States. Part I covers the argument that Kelsen’s approach failed in the United States because it is inferior to H. L. A. Hart’s brand of legal positivism. Part II discusses the historical context in which Kelsen taught and published in the United States and explores both philosophical and sociological reasons why the legal academy in the United States rejected …
Constitutional Theory And The Rule Of Recognition: Toward A Fourth Theory Of Law, Mitchell N. Berman
Constitutional Theory And The Rule Of Recognition: Toward A Fourth Theory Of Law, Mitchell N. Berman
All Faculty Scholarship
This essay, a contribution to a forthcoming edited volume on Hart's rule of recognition and the U.S. Constitution, advances one argument and pitches one proposal. The argument is that Hart's theory of law does not succeed. On Hart's account, legal propositions are what they are - that is, they have the particular content and status that they do - by virtue of their satisfying necessary and sufficient conditions that are themselves established by a special sort of convergent practice among officials. American constitutional theorists are often troubled by this account because it seems to imply that in the "hard cases" …
The Empty Circles Of Liberal Justification, Pierre Schlag
The Empty Circles Of Liberal Justification, Pierre Schlag
Publications
No abstract provided.
Lon Fuller And Substantive Natural Law, Anthony D'Amato
Lon Fuller And Substantive Natural Law, Anthony D'Amato
Faculty Working Papers
I will contend that Fuller's secular or "procedural" natural law, as described by Moffat, does not cover the theoretical position that could be occupied by a substantive natural lawyer, that such a theoretical position is viable today, and that there are some key elements in Fuller's theory that actually conflict with substantive natural law and might therefore be criticized from that perspective.